Patent ID: 6975333

Claim:
An information processing method for automatically processing a display of a plurality of objects within an electronic structured document and for enabling a command text to be used by a user to switch between a vertically-arrayed text and a horizontally-arrayed text, the method comprising the automated steps of: analyzing drawing information including information relating to the plurality of objects to be displayed and layout designating information for specifying a relative position direction with respect to a direction of arranging the plurality of objects within the electronic structured document, wherein the layout designating information is included in the electronic structured document; determining a relative placing position of the plurality of objects in a desired drawing area based on layout definition information corresponding to the layout designating information included in the electronic structured document and obtained by the analysis of the drawing information; generating actual object display position information for the plurality of objects corresponding to the relative placing position of the plurality of objects responsive to the arranging direction; and displaying the object within the desired drawing area based on the generated actual object display position information, wherein the relative position direction is one of vertical and horizontal.