PURPOSE: To draw many ruled lines having the same format in a sort time or even after a power source is turned on again by holding the ruled line having a format of a page unit in a storage device.

CONSTITUTION: An input device 3 consists of a keyboard or a mouse, is used for inputting all data, and format data of a ruled line is also inputted from this input device 3. A ruled line pattern specified by inputted data, especially format data, is displayed on a display device 1. Simultaneously, the inputted data, especially the format data, is stored in a storage device 2. Subsequently, the ruled line pattern formed by the inputted data and the format data is outputted generally as a hard copy from a printer 4 after a document is completed, and each operation and other arithmetic processing, etc., are controlled or processed by a CPU(central processing unit) 5. In such a way, by retaining the format data of the ruled line which is drawn once, the ruled line of the same format is generated many times in a short time by calling its format data.