PURPOSE: To make possible the quick and accurate entry of a ruled table by providing the first step which enters an area for drawing a rule and the second step for entering the interval of a horizontal rule and the frequency of repeating the drawing of a rule.

CONSTITUTION: The whole area for rules is entered from an input device 2. This data is entered into an area calculation device 4 and recognized as a rectangular area. Next, data on the intervals of vertical rules and horizontal rules and the frequency of repeating the drawing of a rule is entered. A division data calculation device 6 converts the entered data on the interval and frequency to a data format suited to the creation of rule data. After this, rule data is created based on the outputs of the area calculation device 4 and the division data calculation device 6. This processing is performed by a rule data creation device 8. The rule data is data for specifying the position of each rule in a ruled table. Then a display control signal is created based on the rule data and the ruled table is displayed. These processings are performed by a display control device 12 and a display device 14.