For generating from variable data page-oriented data for printing dynamic documents, a layout module (13) is linked in series with one or more data processing modules (121, 122) to a data input module (11). The data input module (11) loads (S3) a part of the variable data into local memory and passes it by reference through the data processing modules (121, 122) to the layout module (13). The data processing modules (121, 122) are configured to read (S8c, S13c, S13f) a data field from the variable data in the local memory only in cases where the data field is to be processed by the respective data processing module. The layout module (13) generates (S8) the page-oriented data output from unprocessed and pre-processed data fields, defined in each case by a respective pointer from the data processing modules. Thereby, allocation and de-allocation of local memory is reduced and performance improved.