Word Cloud Generator

How to use the Word Cloud Generator

1. Paste your text into the text box, or open a .txt, .csv, .tsv or .md file (up to 5 MB).
2. Set Shortest word to the minimum letter count you want (1 to 8, default 3).
3. Set Most words shown (5 to 150, default 60).
4. Choose a stop word list for English, Spanish, French, German, Portuguese or Italian, or select Keep every word.
5. Pick a word direction: All across, A few upright, Mixed both ways or All upright.
6. Set Smallest text and Largest text (defaults 14 and 72 px).
7. Choose a colour scheme: Ocean, Sunset, Forest, Candy or Dark grey.
8. Choose a picture size: Landscape 800x520, Square 640x640, Wide 1200x600 or Portrait 520x800.
9. Click Shuffle layout if you want a new arrangement, then check the table under the cloud. It lists the 12 biggest words with their counts and text sizes. A button downloads the counts as a CSV file: it holds the words your settings keep, up to Most words shown, which can include words the cloud had no room to draw.
10. Download the picture as PNG at 1x, 2x or 4x, as SVG, or as a picture PDF.

Your work autosaves in this browser, and the Saved menu keeps named copies of each cloud. A share link holds the whole document inside the link itself, so the person you send it to sees the same cloud without an account.

How do I create a word cloud from a list of counts?

You can skip plain-text counting by typing one word and a number per line, such as “simple, 7”. The tool switches to list mode when at least 60% of your lines follow that pattern, and it sizes each word by the number you gave. A colon or a tab works as the separator too.

1. Enter each word on its own line with its weight, for example “team, 4”, “care: 3” or a tab between the two.
2. Make sure at least 60% of lines follow this pattern. Otherwise the tool treats the whole input as plain text and counts the words itself.
3. Set Most words shown high enough to include every row, up to 150.
4. Check the table under the cloud to confirm each word’s count and text size.

How does a word cloud decide how big each word is?

Each word’s text size depends on its count compared with the lowest and highest counts in your text. The most frequent word gets the Largest text value, and the least frequent gets the Smallest text value. Words in between follow a curve, so they look larger than a straight-line scale would make them.

The formula is: size = Smallest + (Largest − Smallest) × ((count − lowest) ÷ (highest − lowest))^0.8. The built-in sample text “What our team values” gives these results with the default sizes:

The table under your own cloud lists the 12 biggest words with the same values for your text, and the word counts (every word your settings keep, up to Most words shown) download as a CSV file.

Which words are left out of a word cloud?

Common words on the stop word list for your language are removed, and so are words shorter than the Shortest word setting. The tool then draws only the number set by Most words shown. Choose Keep every word to include the common words as well.

If the remaining words cannot fit on the page, the tool tells you how many it left out. Raise the picture size or lower Most words shown to fit more. Chinese and Japanese text is split into words by your browser’s word breaker, and single characters and common function words are left out.

Will the same text give the same word cloud?

The layout is repeatable, so the same text and settings always produce the same picture. The biggest word sits in the centre, and each following word walks an Archimedean spiral outward until its box touches nothing else. Shuffle layout produces a new arrangement while keeping the same sizes and counts.

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