System for supporting flexible color assignment in complex documents

A system includes a unit for handling color assignment within a complex document and for maintaining a perceived brightness difference between elements on a discreet-pixel-depth-display. The unit includes a user interface to facilitate modification by a user of at least one first color to at least one second color within a previously chosen color scheme for a component of the document having principal colors and associated subordinate colors per principal color, a color handler to modify the chosen color scheme to produce an updated color scheme to match a perceived brightness of the at least one second color throughout at least a portion of the updated color scheme, a brightness handler to calculate the perceived brightness of said at least one second color and a subordinate color overrider configured to calculate an actual color to be assigned from the existing subordinate color and the new color requested by the user.