The present invention provides an electronic document filing system. The electronic document filing system comprises a document database for storing document, an input unit for controlling the system, a document data generating unit for generating the document data, a layout data generating unit for generating layout data, a display unit for displaying the data generated by the document data generating unit and layout data generating unit, and a control unit for controlling the display unit to send image data of the page being retrieved to the layout data generating unit upon receipt of a retrieval command from the input unit to display the resulting data of a conversion into the layout data, and to send the image data of the specified page to the document data generating unit to display the image data of the specified page in a legible image.