Method and apparatus for controlling access to portal content from outside the portal

To display content controlled by a portal outside of the portal itself, a user is authenticated to the portal and then permission to access the content authorized. After authentication and authorization, the requested content is returned to the requesting program. The content is returned in the user's preferred language, a using a layout information file to determine how to display the content. A layout strings file storing a layout string in a specific language is also selected, according to the user's preferred languages. The content from a content provider and the layout string are then formatted as specified by the layout information file, and presented to the user or the requesting program.