A document that contains different types of information, each type created with a different application; for example, a report containing both charts (created with a spreadsheet) and text (created with a word processor) is a compound document. Although a compound document is visually a single, seamless unit, it is actually formed of discrete objects (blocks of information) that are created in their own applications. These objects can either be physically embedded in the destination document, or they can be linked to it while remaining in the originating file. Both embedded and linked objects can be edited. Linked objects, however, can be updated to reflect changes made to the source file.