Generating templates from user's past documents

Automatic generation of document templates based on recognized composition element patterns in a group of clustered documents is provided. Composition elements used in documents are typically unique to a particular user or to a group of users. An automated template generation system detects composition element patterns in documents associated with a given user. Sequences of composition elements from one document are aligned with sequences of composition elements of one or more other documents. The aligned sequences are scored to generate a document distance matrix. The documents are clustered together based on the alignment scores and a document template is generated for each corresponding cluster of documents. In one or more aspects, selecting a document template and updating it results in a modified document template or, in certain cases, a new document template. The generated document templates are displayed in a user interface for selection by a user.