DocumentID: ECMA-376/Part1/8.6.1
Title: ECMA-376, Part1: 8.6.1 DrawingML
Extracted-From: ECMA-376 Office Open XML File Formats, 1st Edition / December 2006
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8.6.1 DrawingML

DrawingML specifies the location and appearance of drawing elements in a package. For example, these elements could be, but are not limited to, shapes, pictures, and tables. The root element of a DrawingML XML fragment specifies the presence of a drawing at this location in the document.

A shape is a geometric object such as a circle, square, or rectangle; a picture is an image presented inside the document; and a table is a two-dimensional grid of cells organized into rows and columns. Cells and whole tables can have associated properties. A cell can contain text, for example.

DrawingML also specifies the location and appearance of charts in a package. The root element of a chart part is chart, and specifies the appearance of the chart at this location in the document.

In addition, DrawingML specifies package-wide appearance characteristics, such as the package's theme. The theme of a document specifies the color scheme, fonts, and effects, which can be referenced by parts of the document--such as text, drawings, charts, and diagrams--in order to create a consistent visual presentation.

A chart is a presentation of data in a graphical fashion, such as a pie chart, bar chart, line chart, in order to make trends and exceptions in the data more visually apparent.

DrawingML also specifies the location and appearance of diagrams in a document. Together, the following four parts define a diagram:

• The data part (§14.2.4) specifies individual items of information presented in the diagram. Typically, each piece is a simple line of text, but depending on the diagram, an item of data might also be an image.
• The layout part (§14.2.5) specifies how the data and shapes are laid out to create the resulting diagram.
• The colors part (§14.2.3) specifies the color which is applied to each individual shape in the diagram.
• The styles part (§14.2.6) defines how each individual shape in the diagram maps to the document's theme.