Patent ID: 7487442

Claim:
A method for determining a layout of automatically-placed elements and user-placed elements in a chart created in a chart application program, comprising: (a) receiving data describing a chart including a plurality of chart elements in the chart, wherein the plurality of chart elements includes one or more automatically-placed chart elements laid out according to an automatic layout applicable to each of the chart elements and one or more user-placed chart elements, wherein a user layout of each of the user-placed elements has been previously specified by a user; (b) automatically laying out the each of the plurality of chart elements in the chart according to the automatic layout applicable to each of the chart elements; (c) selecting a first chart element from among the plurality of chart elements as a current chart element; (d) determining whether the current chart element includes a user-placed chart element; (e) if the current chart element includes a user-placed chart element, then applying the user layout of the user-placed element to the user-placed chart element; wherein laying out the user-placed chart element in the chart according to a user-specified layout comprises: determining whether the user-placed chart element is associated with a data point in the chart; if the user-placed chart element is associated with a data point in the chart, then laying out the user-placed chart element as an offset from a data point reference location calculated according the user-specified layout; and if the user-placed chart element is not associated with a data point in the chart, then laying out the user-placed chart element as a proportion of the area of the chart calculated according to the user-specified layout; (f) selecting the next chart element in the chart as the current chart element; and (g) repeating the operations (c)-(f) for each of the plurality of chart elements in the chart until each of the user-placed chart elements are laid out in the chart.