Patent ID: 7546522

Claim:
A method for applying a global formatting scheme to a chart in an electronic document created in a chart application program, comprising: receiving a selection of a chart object in the electronic document; receiving a selection of a document theme, wherein the document theme comprises a combination of a plurality of formatting schemes including a color scheme, a font scheme, and a style matrix, wherein a base style definition defines the plurality of formatting schemes, wherein receiving a selection of a document theme comprises receiving a selection of the document theme from the electronic document, wherein the chart object is embedded in the electronic document; using a schema to define the base style definition and define a layout for the electronic document; in response to a first user input, displaying a plurality of chart styles from a styles gallery associated with the selected document theme, wherein displaying a plurality of chart styles from a styles gallery associated with the selected document theme comprises displaying a plurality of chart styles of the same chart type as the selected chart object in the electronic document; and receiving a selection of a chart style from the plurality of chart styles in the styles gallery; applying the selected document theme to the selected chart object in the electronic document; in response to a second user input, modifying the selected chart style by modifying a plurality of elements related to the selected chart style; saving the chart type of the selected chart object and the modified chart style as a custom chart template to a file; in response to opening the file on a computer associated with a user of the chart application program, updating a chart template gallery to include the custom chart template, wherein the chart template gallery comprises a plurality of chart types and formatting schemes to be applied to chart data associated with the chart object in the electronic document; sending the custom chart type template file from a computer associated with a user of the chart application program to computer associated with another user of the chart application program; and in response to opening the file on the computer associated with the another user, automatically updating a chart template gallery on the computer associated with the another user to display the received chart type.