How to create a Word Cloud with Vizzlo

Vizzlo's Word Cloud allows you to visualize text data easily from 1 up to 200 words. Copy and paste your text, exclude filler words or add keywords to get the most out of your data. You can also filter words that must have a minimum amount of characters. 

(Top30 words used in Barack Obama's inaugural address 2009 versus Donald Trump's inaugural address 2017.)

What is a Word Cloud?

A Word Cloud, also referred as text cloud or tag cloud, is a novelty visual representation of text data. Tags are usually single words, and the importance of each tag is shown by their font size. The larger the word, the more important it is. Word clouds can instantly indicate, which keywords within your text are most prominent.

How to create a Word Cloud with Vizzlo?

Like in all Vizzlo charts, when you create a new word cloud there is some default data. You can copy and paste your data into Vizzlo. 

Keywords

After you removed all the default data from the Word Cloud, you'll notice that 'Rapper's delight' is still shown. That is because it is a keyword.

By default, each word is treated as a single instance. That is, if your data contains 'Rapper's Delight' (only) it would look like this:

The purpose of a key word is to keep a group of words together that can have their own size and color. You can add a key word by clicking the `+` Add keyword button in the menu bar. Note: When the maximum number of 200 words is displayed, each added keyword supersedes one of these words. So that the total number is limited to 200.

Keywords can have their own color and size. Their position is not changeable.

Add text

For this example we take a look at President Obama's Inaugural Address. The text can be downloaded from obamawhitehouse.archives.gov. Copy text (starting from "My fellow citizens" and paste it into the input element Text. You will get this as a result (all keywords being removed at this stage):

Not quite what you would expect. The Word Cloud needs to be cleaned up from all those stop words.

A Google search gave this list of English stop words:

i me my myself we our ours ourselves you your yours yourself yourselves he him his himself she her hers herself it its itself they them their theirs themselves what which who whom this that these those am is are was were be been being have has had having do does did doing would should could ought i'm you're he's she's it's we're they're i've you've we've they've i'd you'd he'd she'd we'd they'd i'll you'll he'll she'll we'll they'll isn't aren't wasn't weren't hasn't haven't hadn't doesn't don't didn't won't wouldn't shan't shouldn't can't cannot couldn't mustn't let's that's who's what's here's there's when's where's why's how's a an the and but if or because as until while of at by for with about against between into through during before after above below to from up down in out on off over under again further then once here there when where why how all any both each few more most other some such no nor not only own same so than too very

Note: the algorithm is not case-sensitive, i.e. "me" and "Me" are treated equally.

When Obama's speech was filtered for those words, the Word Cloud you get is this:

Obviously, 'Applause' makes no sense, since this word was added as a remark. After we filtered for that word and set the number of shown words to 30, the result is:

The Word Cloud shows many verbs still, so let's add more words to the input Words to filter from text:

americans get every many left let one across day today whether will a today day words every meet come must will a things 

Note: this selection is subjective just like the number of displayed words as well.

The final result is the following:

Filter words by the number of characters

Note that by default Vizzlo's Word Cloud will filter words with only 1 or 2 characters. You can change that by setting it in the sidebar using the slider Minimum letters of a word. You can choose to filter from 1 to 10 characters.

Not all of my words are displayed, what can I do?

It can happen that your text contains more words than you see in the Word Cloud. There are a few ways for you to tweak that:

— increase the size of the document layout 

— add keywords (see above)

The document layout can be changed in the sidebar when you click on Document layout:

You can choose from predefined layouts or create your own and save that.

Changing font properties

When you want to change the properties of the font, the background color of the chart you need to open the theme editor.

Tip: Read our article about how to customize your theme.