Data processing: presentation processing of document – operator i – Presentation processing of document – Layout
Reexamination Certificate
2000-07-07
2004-01-13
Hong, Stephen S. (Department: 2178)
Data processing: presentation processing of document, operator i
Presentation processing of document
Layout
C345S215000, C345S215000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06678865
ABSTRACT:
TECHNICAL FIELD
This invention relates to editing a table in an electronic document. More particularly, this invention relates to inserting a table over text, for converting a bordered paragraph into a table, for splitting table cells with text, and for adding cells to a table.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Use of word processing program modules has increased in recent years due in part to the flexibility and simplicity of these programs. Oftentimes, documents with tables are produced using these word processing program modules. Unfortunately, documents with tables are not as easy to produce as documents of entire text. Thus, word processing program developers have tried to develop easier, simpler, and more user-friendly mechanisms for producing and editing tables in an electronic document in order to provide a more competitive word processing program.
In order to better understand how tables are produced and stored in an electronic document, it is helpful to review how elements of a document, in general, are produced and stored. Some word processing program modules store elements of an electronic document on a character basis. For these character-based word processing program modules, new table-forming characters may be added as characters to the word processing program module so that tables may be inserted into a document. For example, referring to
FIG. 1
, several different table-forming characters
10
are illustrated: a horizontal line
15
, a vertical line
20
, corner characters
25
,
30
,
35
,
40
, four-way junction
45
, and t-junctions
50
,
55
. Using these table-forming characters
10
, a user may construct a table of virtually any size and shape using either a keyboard or a mouse to add the table-forming characters to a document.
In early versions of program modules with table-forming characters, the addition of textual characters to a table might destroy the shape of the table since any added characters could push or move the table-forming characters and, thus, destroy the shape of the table. In later improvements, program modules were provided with some intelligence to determine whether the characters on a line constitute a table and, if so, to make certain adjustments. For example, the program may make an adjustment to switch to an overtype mode or to wrap text to the next line. Although table-forming characters provide an adequate solution for tables in word processing program modules that store elements on a character basis, some word processing program modules do not store elements of a document on a character basis. Thus, a different solution is needed to provide easy-to-use tables for these program modules.
Some word processing program modules store text as a stream of characters with paragraph marks. The paragraph marks hold formatting information for the stream of characters. Typically, in these stream-based program modules, cells in a table are composed of a series of paragraphs with special table formatting. The special table formatting may describe attributes of the cell such as the type of border of the cell, the row that the cell is in, the height of the row, whether text is displayed at the top, the middle, or the bottom of the cell, justification of text in the cell, and other attributes. Thus, although the table appears on screen as a single object, it may be stored as a series of paragraphs.
Some word processing program modules also include master cells and slave cells for tables. Typically, master cells control the formatting of slave cells. Slave cells are suppressed, i.e., their borders, contents, etc., are controlled by the master cell. Referring now to
FIG. 2
, a table
200
is illustrated including master cells and slave cells. In
FIG. 2
, the dashed lines represent lines that define cell borders, but which are not displayed on-screen. It should be understood that a row in a table typically must be the same height across the entire row. Thus, there is a need for master cells and slave cells. Cell
205
appears to the user as one large cell when it is actually composed of four cells: a master cell
210
and slave cells
215
. It should also be understood that cell
217
is composed of master cell
220
and slave cells
225
. Generally, all slaves cells must be calculated before the complete cells
205
,
217
can be drawn because the complete cell boundaries are not known until all the slave cells have been calculated.
In some stream-based word processing program modules, a table drawing tool for drawing tables is available. Generally, a table drawing tool allows a user to insert a one-cell table by clicking down a mouse button at a point in a document. The user holds down the mouse button and drags the mouse to increase or decrease the size of the table. When the user releases the mouse button, the table is inserted into the document at the insertion point. Prior to the availability of a table drawing tool, a table was inserted into a document by selecting an insert table command from a menu.
Although using the prior art table drawing tools are more convenient than selecting an insert table command from a menu, there are problems with these prior art table drawing tools. In the prior art, the situation in which a table is drawn on top of existing text is not handled the way users expect. A user draws a table over text, expecting it to become a table around existing text, but instead the text is pushed up or down in the document and the table is inserted with no text inside. For example, referring now to
FIG. 3A
, a prior art table drawing tool
300
is illustrated. As shown in
FIG. 3A
, a table drawing tool
300
is typically displayed on a viewing screen or display as a pen, or stylus. The dashed line in
FIG. 3A
represents a new table
305
to be inserted into a document
310
. The document
310
includes a first sentence
315
, a second sentence
320
and a third sentence
325
. The new table
305
begins at insertion point
330
when the user clicks a mouse button to insert the new table
305
. The new table
305
ends at end point
335
after the user drags the mouse to end point
335
and releases the mouse button. It should be understood that the new table is typically represented by a dashed line until the user releases the mouse button. Thus, as shown in
FIG. 3A
, the new table
305
has not yet been inserted into the document and the user has not yet released the mouse button.
Still referring to
FIG. 3A
, it will be seen that new table
305
completely covers the second sentence
320
and the third sentence
325
. A user generally expects the second sentence
320
and the third sentence
325
to be inside the new table
305
after the mouse button is released. However, as shown in
FIG. 3B
, that is not the case with the prior art table drawing tools.
Referring now to
FIG. 3B
, the new table
305
of document
310
is illustrated. The new table
305
is a solid line in
FIG. 3B
demonstrating that the mouse button has been released and new table
305
has been inserted into the document
310
. New table
305
has been inserted into the document at the insertion point
330
, but the second sentence
320
and the third sentence
325
are no longer inside the table
305
. Thus, there is a need for inserting a table into a document such that a table may be inserted over existing text with the existing text placed inside the table.
Another problem of the prior art table drawing tools is that when a user attempts to split a table cell with text into two table cells, one cell is typically expanded to include all the text, when the user actually wanted to split the text between the two cells. For example, users might put spaces or tabs to separate text and may believe they could split the text into two cells at the point of the spaces or tabs. This does not work with the prior art table tools because of the stream-based structure of word processing program modules.
Referring now to
FIG. 4A
, a table drawing tool
405
in a document
410
has been dragged vertically downward from insertion point
415
to an end point
420
to
Namba Katsuhiro
Pratley Christopher Hugh
Hong Stephen S.
Merchant & Gould
Microsoft Corporation
Paula Cesar B
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