The invention provides a layout system suitable for producing an optimum layout when the attributes of the published information are not clearly determined in advance. The layout system can include a content distribution terminal that selects an article from the content registration DB and a page template from the template registration DB according to the number of characters of the selected article and produces a layout of the article according to the selected page template. Specifically, the total number of characters of an unpublished article is calculated, and the average number of characters in each of unprocessed pages is calculated on the basis of the total number of characters, the maximum number of pages and the current number of pages. Then, a page template with the number of publishable characters suitable for the calculated average number of characters is selected from the template registration DB.