Tabulation device

• US 6,044,383 A
• Filed: 08/12/1997
• Issued: 03/28/2000
• Est. Priority Date: 08/13/1996
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Fuji Xerox Company Limited (Xerox Holdings Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Fuji Xerox Company Limited (Xerox Holdings Corp.)
• Inventors: Kobayashi, Kenichi, Suzuki, Akira
• Primary Examiner(s): Hong, Stephen S.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Paula, Cesar B.
• Application Number:
  US08/909,851
• Time in Patent Office: 959 Days
• Field of Search: 707/509, 707/503, 707/504
• US Class Current: 715/236
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/177 of tables; using ruled lines

Abstract

The present invention provides a tabulation device which may both automatically determine the line spacing of grid structure of a table and automatically line breaking text string in a cell, with less computing costs. In this device for retaining grid structure retains the relationship of the relative position of cells in a table and the text strings to be laid out to each cell. Text field size threshold retains, with respect to each text string, discontinuous points in the line-breaking function as the threshold value of the size of text field. Table layout selects one of the corresponding threshold values from within the text field size threshold for the text string to be laid out, and storing in text field size retaining unit as the size of text field to perform the layout. Layout evaluating evaluates the allocation results of the table from the size of text field in the text field size retaining unit and directs table allocating to reallocate if requirements are not satisfied.

Claims

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.

2. A tabulation device according to claim 1, further comprising:

column/row width upper limit retaining means for retaining the upper limit value of the width of row or column composing said table,

wherein said evaluating means directs said table layout means to lay out said text composing said table such that each of the row or column composing said table has the width less than said upper limit value.

3. A tabulation device according to claim 1, wherein:

said evaluating means controls said table lay out means such that in response to said comparison another one of the sizes of rectangular area is acquired from said text field size threshold providing means to the cell to which the maximum width or height of the size of text field is laid out among cells included in one row or one column of said table.

4. A tabulation device according to claim 1, wherein:

given by defining the heights/widths as L₁, . . . , L_m, of the text field retained in said text field size retaining means in response to the text strings T₁, . . . , T_m in one given row/column in a table, for a given text string T_i among the text strings T₁, . . . , T_m, said table lay out means lays out the text string T_i to the table so as not to present an L satisfying L_i <

L≦

max (L_i, . . . , L_m) provided by the text field size threshold providing means to the text string.

5. A tabulation device according to claim 1, wherein:

given by defining a group of text strings in a given row or column composing a table as T₁, . . . , T_m, and a group of the sizes of rectangular area retained in the means for retaining the sizes of text field and corresponding to said group of text strings L₁, . . . , L_m,

said table lay out means lays out said group of text strings such that the size of rectangular area which is equal to the maximum value of the height or width of said group of the sizes of rectangular area or most approximate to the maximum value among the sizes of rectangular area supplied from the means for providing the size of text field in response to the text string T_i becomes the size L_i of rectangular area for said text string T_i.

6. A tabulating device according to claim 1, wherein:

given by defining the heights as H₁, . . . , H_m and the widths as W₁, . . . , W_m of the text field retained in said text field size retaining means corresponding to the text strings T₁, . . . , T_m in one given row in a table, for a given text Ti among said text strings T₁, . . . , T_m said table lay out means lays out the text string T_i to the table so as not to present a size of a rectangular area whose width W_j and height H_j satisfies W_j <

W_i, and H_j ≦

max (H₁, . . . , H_m) in said sizes of rectangular area provided by said text field size threshold providing means to the text string T_i.

7. A tabulation device according to claim 1, wherein:

given by defining the heights as H₁, . . . , H_m and the widths as W₁, . . . , W_m of the text field retained in said text field size retaining means corresponding to the text strings T₁, . . . , T_m in one given column in a table, for a given text T_i among said text strings T₁, . . . , T_m, said table lay out means lays out the text string T_i to the table so as not to present a size of rectangular area of width W_j and height H_j, satisfying H_j <

H_i and W_j ≦

max (W₁, . . . , W_m) in said sizes of rectangular area provided by said text field size threshold providing means to the text T_i.

8. A tabulation device according to claim 1, wherein:

if another size of rectangular area is provided by said text field size threshold providing means in response to one of said text and said another size is less than the present width/height of said text field size and not more than the maximum height/width of text field sizes of texts which belongs to a column/row including said text, said evaluating means directing said table lay out means to acquire said another size 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 another size of rectangular area.

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.

10. A tabulation device comprising:

a grid structure retaining means which maintains text strings composing a table and grid structures;

column/row size threshold providing means for providing at least part of elements of ##EQU14## for each column/row, wherein said S_i is a set of widths/heights at a plurality of discontinuous points of a line breaking function for T_i, wherein T₁, . . . , T_m are the text strings which are contained by the column/row;

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;

column/row size retaining means for retaining a relationship between the each of columns/rows composing the table and one of elements provided by said column/row size threshold providing means in response to the column/row;

table lay out means for acquiring one of said elements of rectangular area from said column/row size threshold providing means, for causing said column/row size retaining means to retain the relationship between said text and said one of the elements 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 lay out means to acquire another one of elements from said column/row size threshold providing means, for causing said column/row size retaining means to retain the relationship between said text and said another one of the elements of rectangular area acquired by said table lay out means.

11. A tabulation device according to claim 10, further comprising:

column/row upper limit retaining means for retaining the upper limit of the size of row or column for at least each of the row and column composing said table, said evaluating means allowing said table layout means to lay out said row or column composing said table such that each of the row or column composing said table has the width less than said upper limit value.

12. A tabulation device according to claim 10, wherein:

said evaluating means controls said table lay out means such that another one of elements is acquired from said column/row size threshold providing means for the column/row who has the maximum width/height among columns/rows in response to said comparison.