Abstract: A digital computer system and method for storing and retrieving data contained in a "relational data table" in such a way that individual items of data are readily accessible and the data itself is compressible. The items of data are arranged in the table in a plurality of rows and columns. The items of data in each given column are of the same type (fixed length character, variable length up to a prescribed maximum length, etc.). The items of data are arranged in a particular data format which comprises a plurality of "column descriptor" or "C" records, each of which is associated with one column of the table, followed by a plurality of "data" or "D" records which include the items of data in the table. The D records and C records contain the following information: Each D record includes one or more of the items of data from a particular table row. It is therefore associated with this table row and with at least one table column.

Abstract: An impact printing system which is particularly suitable for word processing is provided with the capability of effecting mid-line pitch changes. The impact printer system which is particularly compatible with interactive display terminals in word processing system has means for receiving a selected one of a plurality of type or character font elements. The pitch of character font elements are different from each other. The printing system includes means for selectively impacting selected characters from selected fonts along lines in a document. The system further includes control apparatus for controlling and determining the selection of font elements to be used and in the case of printing with a particular font element, the characters to be printed in respective positions along the lines of the document to provide the desired document format. The control apparatus includes apparatus for controlling the printing with at least two different font elements having different pitch along a single line.

Abstract: In order to avoid the problem of the last line of the body text not being justified when it is not the end of a paragraph but is followed by a footer, a converter/processor (13) is provided to modify the print data stream produced by another converter/processor (12) from the revisable or editable text data stream. If during conversion from the revisable data stream to the print data stream a "last body text line" is found and it is not the end of a paragraph, a latch (34) is set. Then, with each line of print data stream text, the latch is checked, and if the latch is set and the text line ends with a carriage return, the carriage return is replaced with a zero-index-carriage return and an index. These act similar to a carriage return in all cases except one--the text line which they terminate may now be justified.

Abstract: The specification discloses a method for automatically paginating a data stream in a word processing system. A vertical tracking register is incremented by a value representing the displacement of the vertical print position when a line end code is encountered. The page overflow latch is then interrogated to determine whether a page overflow condition has occurred. If a page overflow condition has occurred, the next character in the data stream following a line end code is interrogated to determine whether the character is a graphic character. If the character is a graphic character, a page end code is copied into the output buffer ahead of the graphic character, the page overflow latch is reset and the tracking register is initialized. The tracking register value is then interrogated to determine whether it exceeds the last typing line. If the last typing line value has been exceeded, the page overflow latch is set.