Word Cloud Chart

A “word cloud” is a cluster of labels whose size and/or color indicates the value of some measure associated with these terms, such as their frequency of occurrence in the data set.

What is a measure? What is a dimension?

A measure is generally used for aggregation, for example summation, averaging, correlation, etc., within a Crosstab, Chart, Text component, or Gauge. Adding a measure to the ‘Y’ region in a chart displays the computed aggregates by using locations on the Y-axis. Adding a measure to the ‘X’ region displays the computed aggregates by using locations on the X-axis. You can also display aggregates by using color, shape, size, or label.

A dimension is used to break-down the dataset into multiple groups, often within a Crosstab, Chart, or Selection List. Adding a dimension to the ‘X’ region of a Chart distinguishes the different dimension groups by location on the X-axis. Adding a dimension to the ‘Y’ region distinguishes the different dimension groups by location on the Y-axis. You can add multiple dimensions into the ‘X’ or ‘Y’ regions of a Chart, or into the ‘Rows’ or ‘Columns’ regions of a Crosstab, to create multiple grouping levels. You can also distinguish groups in a dimension by using color, shape, size, or label in a Chart.

WordCloudExample11

To create a word cloud, follow the basic steps below:

If you are new to charting, see the following sections first:

Configure Your Data…​

The data source for the chart (data block or data model) should represent dimensions and measures as independent columns or fields, as shown below. See Prepare Your Data for information on how to manipulate your data, if it is not currently in this form. (Note: A properly designed data model will already have the correct structure.)

dataStructureCharts

In some cases (e.g., Pie Chart), you may want your data to provide just a single measure. In other cases (e.g., Line Chart), you may want the data to supply multiple measures. If the data does not provide the correct number of measures, you may be able to alter the number of measures to suit the needs of the chart by “pivoting” or “unpivoting” the data. See Pivot Data in Prepare Your Data for more information about this procedure.

Open a Chart for Editing…​
Watch Video: Create a Chart (Open the Chart Editor)

This video might show an earlier version of the feature or operation that differs in minor ways from the current version.

Follow the steps below to get started with a new Chart. See Basic Charting Steps for more details.

  1. If necessary, create a new Dashboard. (See Create a New Dashboard.)

  2. From the Toolbox panel, drag a Chart component into the Dashboard.

    addingChart

  3. Resize the Chart as desired by dragging the handles.

    resizeChartHandle 1

  4. Press the ’Edit’ button in the center of the Chart or press the ‘Edit’ button edit in the top-right corner.

    ChartEditButton

    This opens the same Visualization Recommender available for creating a new Dashboard. (See Create a New Dashboard.)

  5. To bypass the Recommender, press the ‘Full Editor’ button edit at the top right to open the Chart Editor.

    ChartEditorIntro

  1. Optional: Place the desired break-down dimensions on the ‘X’ and ‘Y’ axes.

    You can add additional dimensions to the Chart if desired. See Trellis Chart (Grid) for information about adding multiple dimensions to a chart axis. If you do not place any dimension on ‘X’ or ‘Y’, this will create just a single word cloud (i.e., without any groups). If you place one or more dimensions on ‘X’ or ‘Y’, this will create an individual word cloud for each combination of dimension values.

  2. Place the dimension containing the desired word cloud labels into the ‘Text’ region of the Chart Editor.

  3. Place a desired measure in the ‘Size’ and/or ‘Color’ region of the Chart Editor. To create a traditional word cloud where the size and/or color of the labels is proportional to their frequency in the data set, place a measure in the ‘Size’ and/or ‘Color’ region and summarize it by using the ‘Count’ aggregation method. You can also use other aggregation methods, such as ‘Sum’ or ‘Average’, to highlight different aspects of the data.

    When you use the ‘Count’ method, it does not matter which measure you choose to aggregate. See the example below.
Walkthrough: Word Cloud

The following example illustrates how to create a word cloud that compares a count of products for two different years.

  1. Create a new Dashboard based on the ‘Sales Explore’ Data Worksheet. For information on how to create a new Data Worksheet, see Create a Data Worksheet.

    The 'Sales Explore' Data Worksheet can be found in Data Worksheet  Examples. You may need to download the examples.zip file from GitHub into your environment. (This requires access to Enterprise Manager.) See Import and Export Assets for instructions on how to import.

  2. Drag a Chart component into the grid. Resize the chart to use the full screen height.

  3. Press the ‘Edit’ button edit at the top right corner of the Chart to open the Visualization Recommender. Press the ‘Full Editor’ button edit at the top right of the Recommender to bypass the Recommender and open the Chart Editor.

  4. Drag the ‘Date’ dimension to the ‘Y’ region. (This will break out the data by year.)

    WordCloudExample12

  5. Drag the ‘Name’ dimension to the ‘Text’ region.

    WordCloudExample13

  6. Drag the ‘Quantity Purchased’ measure (or any other measure) to the ‘Color’ region.

    WordCloudExample2

  7. Press the ‘Edit Measure’ button measure setting next to the ‘Color’ field. Change the ‘Aggregate’ property to ‘Count’, and press the ‘Apply’ button submit.

    WordCloudExample3

    This counts the occurrence of each product in each year group, and colors the corresponding labels proportionally.

  8. Drag the ‘Quantity Purchased’ measure (again) to the ‘Size’ region.

    WordCloudExample4

  9. Press the ‘Edit Measure’ button measure setting next to the ‘Size’ field, and verify that the ‘Aggregate’ property is set to ‘Count’.

    WordCloudExample5

    This counts the occurrence of each product in each year group, and sizes the corresponding labels proportionally.

  10. Press the ‘Edit Color’ button in the ‘Color’ region. Choose a desired color spectrum, and press the ‘Close’ button close. (A word cloud often displays the smaller-sized labels in a lighter color.)

    WordCloudExample6

  11. Filter the chart to display just the top two years. (This will reduce the clutter on the chart.) You can do this by applying a ranking condition. Follow the steps below:

    1. Press the ‘Edit Dimension’ button dimension setting next to the ‘Date’ field.

    2. From the ‘Rank’ menu, select ‘Top’, and enter “2” as the number of groups to select. This selects the top two years according to the count of products.

    3. Uncheck the ‘As time series’ option. (This suppresses the labeling for any years that intervene between the top two years.)

      WordCloudExample7

    4. Press the ‘Apply’ button submit.

  12. Optional: Adjust the appearance of the chart display as desired. Follow the steps below:

    1. Right-click on each legend and select ‘Hide Legend’.

      WordCloudExample8

    2. Optional: Hide axis titles by right-clicking a title and selecting ‘Hide Title’.

    3. Click on one of the labels in the plot area. Select the Format tab in the left panel and set the font face and size as desired.

      WordCloudExample9

  13. To adjust the label size further, press the ‘Edit Size’ button next to the ‘Size’ region. Adjust the maximum and minimum label sizes by dragging the slider. Press the ‘Apply’ button submit to apply the changes.

    WordCloudExample10

    To further increase the size range of displayed words, use the ‘Font Scale’ property under the Advanced tab of the ‘Chart Properties’ dialog box. (See Chart Properties for more information.)

  14. Press the ‘Finish’ button submit to close the Editor.

The completed chart compares the word clouds for the top two years.

WordCloudExample11

You can proceed to edit the titles, legend, etc. See Basic Charting Steps and Chart Properties for more information. See Add Data Format for information on how to format text on a Chart.