Resolution and composition of electronic document layout are provided. An intermediate text data structure may be generated to hold a “resolved” rich text state for a given document. Properties contained in the “resolved” rich text state are a composite of all relevant properties including user defined and entered properties and including properties associated with the document according to a pre-built document context. This text body resolution process then may be utilized for generating a composite text layout for the text streams associated with a plurality of document components for generating a single rich text stream for presentation to and editing by a user.