Patent ID: 7584415

Claim:
A method for rendering a chart associated with a document, the method comprising: receiving a chart object, the chart object defining the chart with chart elements and referencing a data source of underlying chart data on which the chart is based, the underlying chart data including data values for the chart; determining a type of chart represented by the chart object; retrieving the underlying chart data from the data source referenced by the chart object; translating a plurality of chart elements into a plurality of corresponding shapes based on the type of chart and the data values associated with each of the plurality of chart elements using a translation engine of a common charting module that can be used by multiple application programs and includes a common charting component; generating a shape-based chart definition based on the plurality of corresponding shapes, wherein the determining, retrieving, translating and generating are performed automatically when the document is opened; maintaining the chart object in the document to enable access to underlying chart data contained in the chart; and editing the chart through the common charting component.