Embodiments of the present disclosure provide a method and apparatus for online displaying a document. In one embodiment of the present disclosure, there is provided a method for online displaying a document, comprising: extracting a plurality of data objects from the document; obtaining sizes of corresponding data objects among the plurality of data objects by constructing a document object model associated with the plurality of data objects; generating a layout repository based on the sizes; and rendering the plurality of data objects based on the layout repository, so as to online display the document. In one embodiment of the present disclosure, there is provided an apparatus for online displaying a document. By means of the method and apparatus of the present disclosure, the efficiency of online displaying documents can be increased and thereby user experience can be improved.