US 7,120,866 B2Granted

Spreadsheet fields in text

AssigneeMicrosoft Corporation

InventorsMatthew J. Kotler, Alexander G. Gounares, Oliver G. Fisher, Matthew D. Morgan, Christopher Matthew Franklin

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Abstract

A system architecture integrates spreadsheet functionality into text. The architecture allows insertion of discrete individual fields, referred to as “free floating fields”, inline with normal textual sentences. The free floating fields offer spreadsheet functionality, including the ability to handle complex formulas, reference values in a separate free floating field or table, and automatically recalculate the formulas when a source value changes. The values and formula results can also be formatted (e.g., numbers, date, times, currency, etc.), like a spreadsheet, while remaining part of the normal text of a document. The architecture also has a spreadsheet functionality manager to manage the spreadsheet functions for the free floating fields, such as recalculation, formula handling, sorting, referencing, and the like.

Claims20

Dependent claims

A computer-implemented method comprising:

presenting a free floating field in line with text in a document, the free floating field containing content derived from a source, wherein a format applied to the text is automatically applied to the content within the free floating field;
changing, upon selection the free floating field, an appearance of the free floating field from an appearance of the text in the document to an appearance of a spreadsheet;
determining, upon selection of the free floating field, a type of content in the free floating field;
entering content to the free floating field, wherein entering the content utilizes a formula edit box initially which initially defaults to a size and shape of the free floating field, but which dynamically resizes, as needed, as data is added;
interpreting a type of the entered content based upon the determination of the type of the content already in the free floating field, wherein the interpreting comprises interpreting user entry as applicable to spreadsheet functions, if the type of content is a formula or non-text data and interpreting the user entry as applicable to word processing functions, if the type of the content is not a formula or non-text data;
updating the content in the free floating field automatically upon modification of the source;
and
creating a second free floating field partly in response to user selection of at least a portion of the text of the document, wherein the second free floating field is configured to contain the selected portion of the text.

5 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.