How to create a word cloud in PowerPoint?

Word Clouds

Word Clouds (also known as text clouds or tag clouds) are simple, the more a specific word appears in a source of textual data the bigger and bolder it appears in the word cloud. A word cloud is a collection, or cluster, of words presented in different sizes. It is an effective way to quantify your text-based insights to pull out the most pertinent parts of textual data. They can also help business users compare and contrast two different pieces of text to find the wording similarities between the two. People’s brains digest information better with visuals rather than plain text or data.

So how do you create a word cloud in PowerPoint?

Super Bowl Example

Here is an example of a use of a Word Cloud generated in PowerPoint measuring the 40 words used in f the NFL’s article ‘What We Learned from Chiefs’ overtime win against 49ers in Super Bowl LVIII.‘

We can see usual terms  American Football terms, ‘Defense’, ‘Yard’, ‘Quarter’ etc. There are qualitative insights to gleam from this Word Cloud. However, there are insights we can gleam from this word cloud.

Standout Player Performances

The word cloud allows us to compare which players are getting the most exposure. While the 49ers’ Moody, Purdy, and McCaffery get notable mentions, it is the Chief’s star players receives the most mentions. Travis Kelce has a whole paragraph dedicated to his impressive second half performance thereby making him the second most mentioned person in this article. But it is Mahomes who receives the most mentions, the Super Bowl LVIII MVP gave Quarter masterclass and left his footprint on not only this article or on Super Bowl LVIII, but also on NFL history.

Quarters or Historical Significance? 

The size of ‘First’, ‘Second’, ‘Third’, and ‘Fourth’ vary in size. This can refer to the four quarters of play and the size difference may suggest that the first quarter was the most significant and action-packed. However, these words are also used to denote historical significance, for example “Jauan Jennings became the second player to throw and catch a TD in the same Super Bowl. The first was Nick Foles, who won Super Bowl LVII MVP.” These number terms do not only express the events of Super Bowl LVIII itself but also its significance in annuls of Super Bowel history.

Vizualz

Word Cloud generation is made easy by our PowerPoint plug-in Vizualz.

You simply go to your tool bar and click on new visual. Click on World Cloud and paste your chosen text. Vizualz will automatically tally the word usage and within seconds your Word Cloud is ready.

Vizualz allows users to customise their Word Cloud, for example, you can combine individual words into a singular term. I combined ‘Super’ and ‘Bowl’ into the singular term ‘Super Bowl’. You can also change the shape of your Word Cloud and customise its colours to reflect your branding.