TEMPORARY FORMATTING AND CHARTING OF SELECTED DATA

• US 20110271172A1
• Filed: 04/30/2010
• Published: 11/03/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 04/30/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Ruble, Brian Scott, Radakovitz, Samuel Chow
• Granted Patent: US 11,270,066 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/212
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0481 based on specific properties of the displayed interaction object or a metaphor-based environment, e.g. interaction with desktop elements like windows or icons, or assisted by a cursor's changing behaviour or appearance
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0482 Interaction with lists of selectable items, e.g. menus
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/18 of spreadsheets form-filling G06F40/174

Abstract

Selected data is temporarily formatted and charted to assist a user in visualizing the selected data without the user having to manually create the display of the charted data. Once the temporary formatting and charting is automatically applied to the selected data, a user may interact with the visual formatting and charts to gain additional information. For example, the chart may be formatted differently, reference lines may be added, the chart may be sorted, the type of chart(s) displayed may be changed, the user may graphically navigate over the chart to obtain more detailed information, and the like. Once the user has completed interacting with the temporarily formatted and created chart(s) the visualizations are removed from the display.

Claims

1. A method for temporarily formatting and charting data, comprising:

receiving a selection of data;

determining values within the selected data;

temporarily displaying a chart representing the values from the selected data;

wherein the chart is automatically created and displayed upon receiving the selection of data.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein temporarily displaying the chart comprises displaying a separate chart for each row or each column within the selected data.

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising displaying each separate chart using a common axis.

4. The method of claim 2, further comprising displaying the value of a point in the chart when the point in the chart is navigated.

5. The method of claim 4, further comprising comparing the value of the point that is navigated to each of the other displayed charts and providing an indication of a difference of the values between the charts.

6. The method of claim 2, further comprising determining labels for the charts by traversing the data until the labels are reached within the data from which the data is selected.

7. The method of claim 2, further comprising displaying a reference line across the charts and formatting values in relation to a value of the reference line.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein selecting a point on one of the displayed charts displays information relating to a comparison of the reference line to a value of the selected point.

9. A computer-readable storage medium having computer-executable instructions for temporarily formatting and charting data, the instructions executing on a processor of a computer, comprising:

receiving a selection of data that is selected from a table of data;

determining all of the values within the selected data;

automatically determining a chart type to display the selection of data;

temporarily displaying a chart representing the values from the selected data;

wherein the chart is automatically created and displayed upon receiving the selection of data.

10. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 9, wherein temporarily displaying the chart comprises displaying a separate chart for each row or column within the selected data;

wherein each of the separate charts includes a common axis.

11. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 10, further comprising removing a display of unselected data upon the temporary display of the chart.

12. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 10, further comprising sorting the displayed charts and updating the display in response to the sorting.

13. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 10, further comprising comparing the value of the point that is navigated to each of the other displayed charts and providing an indication of a difference of the values between the charts.

14. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 10, further comprising determining labels for the charts by traversing the table of data until the labels are reached within the data from which the data is selected.

15. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 10, further comprising displaying a reference line across the charts and formatting values in relation to a value of the reference line.

16. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein selecting a point on one of the displayed charts displays information relating to a comparison of the reference line to a value of the selected point.

17. A system for temporarily formatting and charting data, comprising:

a processor and a computer-readable medium;

an operating environment stored on the computer-readable medium and executing on the processor;

a productivity application and a visual manager operating on the processor; and

configured to perform tasks, comprising;

receive a selection of data that is selected from data presented in rows and columns within the productivity application;

determine values of the selected data;

determine a chart type to display the selection of data; and

temporarily display a chart representing the values from the selected data in response to the selection of data.

18. The system of claim 17, wherein temporarily displaying the chart comprises displaying a separate chart for each row within the selected data;

wherein each of the separate charts includes a common axis.

19. The system of claim 18, further comprising displaying a value of a point in the chart in response to a user navigating a pointing device over the value.

20. The system of claim 18, further comprising determining a label of the chart from the table of data by accessing a label row of the table of data.