Patent ID: 7624340

Claim:
An apparatus for application functionality in an electronic document in response to a user typing textual input data in a data field, the apparatus comprising: a form database storing input forms corresponding to a plurality of input form types; a memory device storing executable instructions; and a processing device, in response to the executable instructions, operative to: receive the textual input data typed by the user in a first data field of a first data type of an input form containing a plurality of data fields, the input form retrieved from the form database and corresponding to one of the plurality of input form types; when the textual input data typed by the user is one of a plurality of predetermined help commands, execute a help application based on the help command, where the help application provides for the determination of a stored input data value to be inserted in the first data field; and when the textual input data typed by the user is a key command: identify and access a key application, wherein the key application provides a list of user-selectable options in a secondary display, the list of user-selectable options being selected based on both the input form type and input data from a second data field of a second data type in the input form; and responsive to a received selected option from the list of user-selectable options: populating the first data field with the selected option; inserting an additional field in the input form related to the selected option; and automatically populating, the additional field with data related to the selected option.