Patent ID: 7904800

Claim:
A method for generating a custom spreadsheet, said method implemented by execution of a control program on a processor of a computer system, said method comprising: said processor generating a view of a database, wherein the view of the database includes data of the database and is represented in the form of a table but does not actually exist as a table of the database; and said processor transforming the view of the database into the custom spreadsheet; wherein the transforming includes performing N functions F 1 , F 2 , . . . , F N based on N rule sets R 1 , R 2 , . . . , R N , respectively, wherein N is at least 1; wherein the transforming includes executing said control program, wherein executing the control program includes invoking N software modules M 1 , M 2 , . . . , M N which respectively retrieve the rule sets R 1 , R 2 , . . . , R N ; and wherein invoking the modules M 1 , M 2 , . . . , M N includes performing by the modules M 1 , M 2 , . . . M N the functions F 1 , F 2 , . . . , F N based on rule sets R 1 , R 2 , . . . , R N , respectively; wherein the N rule sets include: range formatting rules for controlling the appearance of text in the custom spreadsheet cells that do not have column titles, column title rules for controlling column title labeling and column title formatting, report header rules for controlling report header content and report header formatting, report footer rules for controlling report footer content and report footer formatting, totaling rules for controlling totaling and subtotaling content, translation rules for controlling translating data or converting data from one format to another, calculation rules for controlling data calculations, sheet rules for controlling naming of sheets and formatting of sheets, report naming rules for controlling data report naming, and report placement rules for controlling data report location.