Monday 17 January 2011

Thing #7 of Westminster's 23 Things - tag clouds


Wordle: wmin23wordle

Thing number 7 is tag clouds, specifically concentrating on Wordle The example to the right shows some of the words I associate with the 23 Things Programme.

My colleagues and I sometimes use Wordle to jazz up our drop in session leaflets. I've also used it in PowerPoint presentations, as something to talk around.

I've found it especially helpful for highlighting the most common words used in a piece of text. For example, putting in my blog URL generates this cloud:

Wordle: wmin23thingsblog

This is the first time I've attempted to put the cloud into my blog and I'm rather disappointed with how small it is! However, if I try to enlarge the image, it makes the text blurry. Is there a way round this?

I then tried the same with Tagxedo, which I first heard about through the Festive 24 Things blog
I had to switch browsers for this, as it wouldn't work properly in Internet Explorer. Firefox came to the rescue though. Tagxedo also creates word clouds but can make them into different shapes, such as the cat below:

2 comments:

  1. Re: making the image bigger, have your tried clicking on the image when you're in the WYSIWYG editor as I think that then gives you size options and centring/justification too....

    When reading the blog, clicking on the image renders them almost fullscreen too.

    HTH

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  2. Ah yes, clicking on the image within the post works perfectly! Thanks!

    ReplyDelete