Systems and techniques for generating responsive documents are described. Digital content is organized into a structure that defines how content is presented when a document is displayed by a computing device. To generate the responsive document, relationships are defined among different digital content objects, such as groups of content objects to be presented together and content objects that are to be presented as alternatives of one another. Responsive patterns are assigned to grouped content objects, where each responsive pattern defines different layout configurations for displaying grouped content objects based on computing device display characteristics. In some implementations, multiple responsive patterns are assigned to a single content group and individual responsive patterns are associated with activation ranges for display characteristics that activate the responsive pattern. For groups of digital content objects that are assigned multiple responsive patterns, responsive patterns are prioritized to create a hierarchy dictating display of the responsive document.