[vaughany].com

If you’re familiar with the concept of tag clouds then word clouds should be fairly self-explanatory. If not, try Wikipedia’s explanation of a tag cloud (or both):

“A tag cloud or word cloud… is a visual depiction of user-generated tags, or simply the word content of a site, used typically to describe the content of web sites.”

The more frequently a word is used in a piece of text, or on a web page, the more emphasis is placed on a word (or tag) visually. You may have seen them on blogs and similar places all over the web, and a reasonable example is on the Using Moodle course on Moodle.org. (There’s a LOT of examples and good practice over at smashingmagazine.com.)

Wordle – www.wordle.net – makes making word clouds simplicity.  It uses Java in your browser for quick results, but with the option of saving your creation to an online gallery if you like.

Firstly, find some words. Hint: these are words!  Not just any words though, and not a word list either.  Copy the content of a web page, a document or even an email, paste it into the Wordle window and click Generate, and then wait a few seconds…

Click thumbnail below for full-screen goodness. Seriously, the thumbnail doesn’t do what this app can do justice.

That was, and is, Jabberwocky, as cut-and-pasted from Wikipedia into Wordle. This example is one I have created and saved earlier, however if you create one now, you can alter the settings which define how it is created. Because the program arranges the words randomly (more or less) no two Wordles will ever be the same, even if created with the exact same text. Go on, give it a go!

Here’s another example: I Wordled the BBC News page this morning:

There is a gallery of other user-created word clouds, have a look through to see what can be achieved. But more importantly, have a go yourself. All you need is Java installed and an appropriate source of words. Here’s my Jabberwocky saved as a PNG (I did that bit myself but check out the site’s FAQ) with the link back to the website to comply with the Creative Commons license (click for 1680×1050 goodness):

Wordle example using Lewis Carroll

Edit: I Wordled this website just after posting this entry, and this was the result after tinkering with the font, layout, colours…

Further Edit: After watching the Queen’s speech at the opening of Parliament, I couldn’t resist running a transcript through Wordle. (Click for 1680×1050 example.)

Wordle Example: 2008 Queen's Speech

Further Further Edit: Drew Buddie has created a slideshow and uploaded it to Slideshare.