The technology herein involves accessing content of an electronic document and a shared layout for the electronic document, wherein the shared layout provides a layout for user devices having different dimensions of display areas; rendering the content of the electronic document onto a primary rendering surface and a secondary rendering surface, wherein the primary rendering surface is associated with a native platform of a user device and the secondary rendering surface is associated with the shared layout of a server; applying operation commands to modify the primary rendering surface, the operation commands resulting from a user interaction with the electronic document; merging the operation commands into a merged operation call; and invoking the merged operation call to modify the secondary rendering surface, wherein the merged operation call reduces a number of operation calls that modify the secondary rendering surface and is shared with the server to modify the shared layout.