PURPOSE: To easily and quickly converge/retrieve a required document or the like and to improve an operation function by retrieving stored document information under a prescribed condition and outputting the retrieved result.

CONSTITUTION: An exclusive icon for specifying the sort of a document exists in the lower part of a table display screen displayed by an output device 6. An operator depresses an exclusive key at the time of setting up a specified document sort. Then document information including the information of the specified document sort is extracted from a data storing buffer 3. The rearranging processing of display order of extracted data is executed in accordance with a display order specifying item. Then a table of document names is displayed in the rearranged order. Consequently a document sort can be specified from the document name table, the number of documents to be displayed can be converged and operability can be improved.