Patent Document ID: 6044383
Application ID: 08909851

Base Claim:
1. A tabulation device comprising: a grid structure retaining means which maintains text strings composing a table and grid structure; text field size threshold providing means for providing at least a value of one of the width and the height at a plurality of discontinuous points output of a line-breaking function on said text strings composing a table, said line breaking function of a text maps a width/height to a height/width of a rectangular area whose height/width is minimum for laying out the text in said rectangular area; text field size retaining means for retaining a relationship between said text string composing said table and the size of a rectangular area provided by said text field size threshold providing means in response to said text; table layout means for acquiring one of said sizes of rectangular area from said text field size threshold providing means, for causing said text field size threshold retaining means to retain the relationship between said text and said one of the sizes of rectangular area acquired by said table lay out means, based on said grid structure; and evaluating means responsive to the result of comparison of the tabulation by said table lay out means with predetermined conditions for directing said table layout means to acquire another one of the sizes of rectangular area from said text field size threshold providing means, for causing said text field size threshold retaining means to retain the relationship between said another one of the sizes of rectangular area and said text.

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Claim 9:
9. A tabulation device according to claim 1, wherein: said table lay out means re-lays out by selecting a size of rectangular area of the cell from within a plurality of sizes of rectangular area provided by said means for providing the size of text field, such that the height/width of the cell decreases when said table is re-laid out such as to increase the width/height of the cell composing the table.