A method and apparatus for handling various types of dictionaries while processing a document which is written in a hierarchically structured page description language. As each hierarchical level of the document is processed, a data structure is created for keeping track of system parameters, This data structure contains pointers to dictionary link data structures which have pointers to different dictionaries. As the document is being processed, the pointers in the data structure used for keeping track of the system parameters and the pointers to the dictionary link data structures are modified to so that the dictionaries can be accurately searched for the desired key to determine the key's corresponding value.