System and method for integrating spreadsheets and word processing tables

• US 20050050088A1
• Filed: 10/08/2004
• Published: 03/03/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 06/21/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Fisher, Oliver G., Kotler, Matthew J., Gounares, Alexander G., Franklin, Christopher Matthew, Wolf, Richard J., Anantharaman, Vinod, Morgan, Matthew D.
• Granted Patent: US 7,506,242 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/177 of tables; using ruled lines
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/18 of spreadsheets form-filling G06F40/174
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99931 Database or file accessing

Abstract

An architecture integrates spreadsheet functionality into tables commonly used in word processing programs and HTML documents. The architecture presents a table user interface (UI) that resembles a table when not being edited and adds spreadsheet elements to the table when being edited. Underlying the table UI, the architecture separates data handling functions from presentation functions. The architecture includes a table appearance manager to manage how the table appears in a document including such characteristics as table resizing, selection, cut, copy, paste, split, merge, table formatting and so on. The architecture also has a spreadsheet functionality manager to manage the spreadsheet functions for the table, such as recalculation, formula handling, sorting, referencing, and the like. The bifurcated architecture supports cross-table referencing, reference editing, automatic universal recalculation throughout all tables in the document, and nested table structures in which one table is nested within a cell of another table.

Claims

1. An architecture comprising:

a user interface to present a document containing text and a table; and

a table management system to manage how the table appears in the document and to manage spreadsheet functions for the table.

2. The architecture of claim 1, wherein the table management system provides a formula edit box to permit the user to enter a formula into a cell of the table.

3. The architecture of claim 1, wherein the table management system comprises:

a table component to support editing functionality of the table; and

a spreadsheet component to receive data and formulas input into the table.

4. The architecture of claim 1, wherein the table management system comprises:

a cell table to maintain data values and formulas used in the table; and

a format table to maintain formatting information used in the table.

5. The architecture of claim 1, wherein the table management system comprises:

a cell table to maintain data values and formulas used in the table; and

a recalculation engine to recalculate the formulas following a change to a data value or formula in the cell table.

6. The architecture of claim 1, wherein the table management system comprises:

a cell table to maintain data values and formulas used in the table;

a delay parser to parse input for the cell table as needed; and

a recalculation engine to recalculate the formulas following a change to a data value or formula in the cell table.

7. The architecture of claim 1, wherein the document contains multiple tables, and the table management system is configured to maintain data and formulas for the multiple tables.

8. The architecture of claim 1, wherein the user interface presents multiple tables in one or more documents, and the table management system is configured to maintain data and formulas for the multiple tables and track references made from one table to another table, the table management system being further configured to update any data and formulas in the multiple tables that is affected by a change made to one of the tables.

9. A method comprising:

presenting a table user interface (UI) within a markup document, the table UI containing data and at least one formula referencing the data;

creating a cell table to hold the data and formula for the table UI;

creating a format table to hold formatting information for the table UI;

receiving user input in the table UI;

parsing the user input to update the cell table and the format table;

in an event the user input changes the data being referenced, recalculating the formula in the cell table to produce a new result; and

presenting the table UI with the new result.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the presenting comprises rendering the table UI as an HTML table.

11. The method of claim 9, wherein the cell table references one or more cell objects, each cell object being associated with a cell in the table UI.

12. The method of claim 9, wherein the format table contains formatting information for individual cells in the table UI.

13. The method of claim 9, wherein the parsing determines whether the user input is a formula, data, or text and determines the data format of that input.

14. The method of claim 9, wherein the recalculating comprises traversing a chain of formulas and calculating the formulas according to an order in the chain.

15. The method of claim 9, wherein parsing comprises delaying parsing of selected cells in the cell table and the recalculating comprises inducing additional parsing of the selected cells as needed by the formula.

16. The method of claim 9, further comprising presenting a free floating field in the document and separate from the table, the free floating field containing a formula that references the data in the table.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein the recalculating further comprises recalculating the formula in the free floating field in response to change of the data.

18. A computer readable medium having computer-executable instructions that, when executed on one or more processors, perform the method as recited in claim 9.

19. A computer readable medium having computer-executable instructions that, when executed on one or more processors, performs the following:

construct a table user interface (UI) for display within a document;

create a cell table to hold data and at least one formula for the table UI; and

upon modification of the data, recalculate the formula in the cell table to produce a new result.

20. The computer medium of claim 19, further comprising computer-executable instructions that, when executed on one or more processors, perform creation of a format table to hold information pertaining to a data format of the table UI.

21. A computer readable medium having computer-executable instructions that, when executed on one or more processors, performs the following:

construct a first table user interface (UI) for display within a document;

create a first cell table to hold data for the first table UI;

construct a second table user interface (UI) for display within the document;

create a second cell table to hold a formula for the second table UI, the formula referencing the data in the first cell table; and

upon modification of the data in the first cell table, recalculate the formula in the second cell table to produce a new result.

22. The computer medium of claim 21, wherein the first table UI is nested within the second table UI.

23. A computer readable medium having computer-executable instructions that, when executed on one or more processors, performs the following:

construct a table user interface (UI) for display within a document;

create a first cell table to hold data for the table UI;

construct a free floating field for display within the document;

create a second cell table to hold a formula for the free floating field, the formula referencing the data in the first cell table; and

upon modification of the data in the first cell table, recalculate the formula in the second cell table to produce a new result.