Patent ID: 8468441

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for copying and pasting a chart from a first application to a second application, the method comprising: determining when a chart is copied from a first application; determining when a copy and paste operation is selected within a second application to copy the chart to the second application, wherein the second application is a host application that includes a visual representation of the chart within a document of the host application after the chart is copied; determining when to paste the chart using a source formatting associated with the first application and when to paste the chart using a destination formatting associated with the second application; communicating the chart to the second application from the first application using a clipboard application when the copy and paste operation corresponds to one of pasting the chart as a linked chart and pasting the chart as a shape chart, wherein the linked chart corresponds to providing a link to data for the chart between the first and the second application wherein the link automatically communicates updated data of the chart from the first application to the second application, and the shape chart corresponds to representing the chart as a picture of assembled shapes that remains editable and is defined by a hierarchy of vector shapes that follows a schema, wherein the clipboard application temporarily stores data relating to the chart after the copy operation and during the paste operation; and communicating the chart to the second application using an alternate data transfer interface when the copy and paste operation corresponds to pasting the chart as an embedded chart, wherein the embedded chart corresponds to providing a file that includes the chart to the second application and the file is associated with the first application.