An architecture for generating accessible documents uses a Data/Layout Description Language (D/LDL) and data sources. The D/LDL and the data source are fed to a pre-processing module which generates an intermediate document containing all the data and positioning hints and structural information required to create the accessible file. The intermediate file is converted into an object model using a Model Builder and is passed to a Model Formatter to calculate the exact positioning of elements. The object model is then passed to a Standard formatter to ensure compliance with required standards and is then passed to a model writer which translates the object to an accessible file in the required format. The design allows for skipping the preprocessing module if the full file is available and allows to plug different model writers for different formats.