Abstract: Architecture that facilitates the calculation of the final margins and positions of all objects in one formatting pass, without the need to reformat an object in the margin neighborhood. Clearance objects, float objects, and empty objects are taken into account. The one-pass algorithm computes the positions of objects on the document due to collapsing margins, determines the sizes of the resulting collapsed margins, and correctly places empty objects, floats, and clearance objects in the document. Clearances due to objects that belong to the neighborhood are processed as well as clearances due to objects outside of the neighborhood.