Word cloud generator

How to make a word cloud

1. Paste your text. An essay, a speech, survey answers or a list. Pick Words to count single words, Phrases to keep each line or comma-separated item whole, or Word: weight to set sizes yourself with lines like sun: 5.
2. Trim the list. Choose the stopword language, a minimum count, how many words to show (10 to 300) and any words to leave out.
3. Fix the table. Merge dog and dogs, rename a word, remove one, or type a new size number.
4. Pick a shape and look. Circle, heart, star, square, cloud or your own picture; a font, colours, background and how the words point. Regenerate shuffles the layout; typing an earlier seed brings that layout back.
5. Download. A PNG at 1× to 4×, or an SVG for slides and print.

How the counting works

In Words mode a word is a run of letters or digits, with an apostrophe or hyphen inside it allowed, so don't and well-known count as one word each. Common words are dropped using the lists of the open stopwords-iso project: 1,298 English words, 170 Danish, 620 German, 691 French and 732 Spanish. The English list is long and also drops words like new, great and year; pick None if you want to keep them, and type single words into Leave out instead. Example: apple apple apple banana banana cherry the the the the gives apple 3, banana 2 and cherry 1; the is on the English list, so it is not drawn even though it is the most common word.

Size follows the count in a straight line: the most common word is drawn largest and the least common at one fifth of that size. The largest size is chosen from the shape's area and the words' measured widths so the shape fills up. A word that has no room left at its size is drawn three quarters as big, again if needed, rather than left out; if one of the three largest words would have to shrink, the whole cloud is redone smaller. The status line says how many words were placed and how many were drawn smaller than their count, so you know when sizes no longer compare exactly. The layout itself is wordcloud2.js: it starts at the centre and spirals outward, putting each word, largest first, in the first spot where none of its letters touch another word's and none fall outside the shape.

What it cannot do

• No live audience voting. Collecting answers from a room of phones needs a server and accounts; this tool has neither. Collect the answers elsewhere and paste them here.
• Words are counted by spelling, not meaning. Dog and dogs, or run and running, count apart unless you merge them in the table. A word with two meanings counts as one.
• Texts over 1 MB are slow. Counting itself is quick (1 MB of English, about 170,000 words, counted in under 0.1 s on a desktop when this page was built), but a text box holding a whole book makes pasting, typing and scrolling sluggish, especially on a phone, and a text over 1 MB is not saved on this device.
• Stopwords in five languages only. English, Danish, German, French and Spanish. In other languages every word is counted unless you leave words out yourself.
• Latin letters in the fonts. The five fonts cover English and Western European letters; Greek, Cyrillic, Chinese, Arabic and other scripts are drawn in your device's own font.
• In a crowded cloud, size is only roughly the count. Words that run out of room are drawn smaller (or, under 4 pixels, left out), and the status line says how many. For exact comparisons, show fewer words; the table always holds the true counts.
• A shape shows clearly only with enough words. With 20 or 30 words a heart or star is hard to see; from about 75 words on the outline reads well.
• Saved on this device only. Text, table edits and settings stay in this browser's local storage until you tap Clear. A picture shape is not saved; pick the picture again after a reload.

Questions

Is this word cloud generator free online, with no sign-up?

Yes. It is free, with no account, no watermark and no app. The cloud is counted and drawn in your browser, so the text you paste is never uploaded.

How do I make a word cloud with phrases, so "ice cream" stays together?

Choose Phrases and put one phrase per line, or separate them with commas. Each phrase is counted and drawn whole: ice cream, ice cream, hot dog gives ice cream twice as big as hot dog. To set sizes yourself, choose Word: weight and write lines like ice cream: 5; a tab works instead of the colon, so two columns copied from a spreadsheet paste straight in.

How do I get a sharp word cloud for a presentation?

Download the PNG at 3× or 4× (a circle cloud at 4× is 4000 × 4000 pixels), or the SVG, which stays sharp at any size because every word is real text with its font embedded. Tick Transparent to drop the cloud onto a coloured slide.

Can I use it as a word cloud maker for the classroom?

Yes. Paste students' answers (in Phrases mode one answer per line stays whole), merge spellings that mean the same thing in the table, and show the cloud. It does not collect answers live from phones; that needs a server and accounts, which this tool does not have.

Why are "dog" and "dogs" counted as two words?

Words are counted by spelling, not meaning. Tick both rows in the frequency table and press Merge ticked, or rename one to the other, and their counts add up.