Method, printing system and computer program for generating and processing document data streams

In a method or system to generate a document data stream of a first format that is serially structured per page, document data of a second format that comprise multiple pages of a document are linked with the document data stream. In the document data stream of the first format a separate characteristic type mapping is provided that indicates that contiguous document data that comprise multiple pages are linked with the document data stream. In the first format a first page of the multipage document is completely and successfully run through a parsing process before document data of subsequent pages are run though the parsing process.