PURPOSE: To automatically and decently layout-process a prepared sentence by converting the descriptive form of an extracted element into a uniform form, and converting the element converted into the uniform form into document shaping language to execute a layout definition.

CONSTITUTION: A first conversion processing part 4 to convert an extracted logical element into a basic element by using a first dictionary part 2 and a second conversion processing part 7 to convert the basic element to show the logical structure of sentence layout into the document shaping language by using a second dictionary part 6 are provided. The element to show the logical structure of sentence layout is extracted from an input document, and after converting the descriptive form of the extracted element into the uniform form, the element converted into the uniform form is converted into the document shaping language to execute the layout definition. Thus, the generated sentence can be layout-processed automatically and decently without casting a burden upon a person to prepare a document.