A unique document handling facility on the scale of a Lotus Notes document. Preferably, the documents are stored in a relational database and served-up using Java servlets, with provisions for handling document content and group level security. The preferred implementation of the invention provides several specific features: (1) Presentation and control of heterogeneous document content through the service of the Enterprise Application Development Platform, (2) An efficient scheme for group level and user level security, (3) Presentation of heterogeneous document types, (4) Presentation of heterogeneous data types in the document, (5) A method to externalize definition of keyword selections, and (6) The ability to present document fields in any order, regardless of whether they originate in the head or body of the underlying document.