A method is provided for creating a print container with a series of resident fixed documents. The method opens a user interface (UI). Using the UI, a first plurality of elements stored in memory is selected and a print container is created. The print container preserves a second plurality of elements as separate entities in the print container. For example, a print container may have an element hierarchy of jobs in the print container, fixed documents in a job, and fixed pages in a fixed document may be created. Elements are defined as print containers, fixed documents, application-specific documents, page description language (PDL) documents, extensible markup language (XML) paper specification (XPS) fixed documents, or combinations of the above-mentioned elements. In one aspect, the selected elements are extensible markup language (XML) paper specification (XPS) fixed documents, which are preserved as separate entities in an XPS container.