10. In or for a computer system comprising a processing unit, a user input device coupled to the processing unit, a memory coupled to the processing unit, a display device coupled to the processing unit, and a desktop publishing program running on the processing unit, a method for rendering a desktop publishing document comprising: receiving a layout selection command from the user input device corresponding to a predefined layout for the document; the layout comprising a predefined set of objects, each object having a user-definable set of object properties for defining a visible element of the desktop publishing document; each object property having a propagation code associated with an object propagation rule for coordinating that object property with a predefined set of other object properties, wherein the propagation codes and their associated rules are stored within an object propagation rule table; receiving a publication definition command setting an object property definition for a first one of the object properties, using the object propagation code associated with the first object property to retrieve the propagation rule for the first object property from the object propagation rule table; and propagating the object property definition for the first object property to a predefined group of the objects in accordance with the propagation rule for the first object property; and displaying the document on the display device.
15. The method of claim 10, wherein: the layout further comprises a plurality of components, each component comprising a plurality of the objects; each object having an associated an identifier and an associated instance code; the layout further comprises a plurality of groups including objects identifiers that occur in a plurality of the components; and the propagation rule for the first object property is selected from a group of propagation rules including, a first rule for no propagation of the object property definition for the first object property, a second rule for propagating the object property definition for the first object property to objects in the same component whose object identifiers belong to the same group, a third rule for propagating the object property definition for the first object property to objects in the same document whose object identifiers belong to the same group, and a fourth rule for propagating the object property definition for the first object property to objects with the same identifiers and the same instance codes in the document.