Free Word Cloud Generator

What this word cloud generator does

WordCloudSpark turns any text, or a list of words and counts, into a word cloud you can download. You choose the shape, the colours and the font, and you can export the result as a vector SVG (real text that stays sharp at any size) or a PNG image. It is free, there is no watermark and no account, and your text never leaves your browser.

How to make a word cloud in four steps

1. Add text. Paste it into the box, or choose a .txt, .csv or .md file from your device. The box starts with a short sample so you can see the result straight away; press Clear to start fresh. Press Generate, or Ctrl or Cmd plus Enter, to build the cloud.
2. Choose what to count. Single words are the default. Switch to two-word or three-word phrases for feedback and reviews, pick the language whose filler words should be skipped, and list any words you want to exclude, such as your company name.
3. Choose the look. Pick a shape, a palette, a font and a canvas size. The words are sized automatically to fill the shape; untick that option to set the largest word yourself. The same layout number always gives the same picture, and Shuffle layout tries another.
4. Download. Take the SVG for print and design work, the PNG for slides and documents, or the CSV of counts if you want the numbers.

How the counting works

A word cloud is a picture of word frequency, so the counting rule matters more than the colours. WordCloudSpark follows the same steps every time:

1. The text is converted to lower case, so Story, story and STORY are one word. Curly apostrophes are treated as straight ones, so don’t stays one word.
2. It reads runs of letters (from any alphabet), digits and apostrophes. Spaces, punctuation and hyphens end a run, so well-known becomes well and known.
3. Words shorter than your “shortest word” setting (two characters by default) are dropped. Numbers can be dropped too.
4. If you chose a language, its common filler words are dropped. So is anything in your exclusion box or removed from the table.
5. What is left is counted and sorted from most to least frequent. Words with the same count keep the order in which they first appeared.
6. The top words, up to the “max words” limit, are drawn.

The sample text in the generator contains 54 counted words in 43 different forms. Its most frequent word is innovation, which appears 3 times, and the frequency table beside the cloud shows every count so you can check the picture against the numbers.

How word sizes are chosen

The most frequent word gets the largest size and the least frequent word gets the smallest size you set. Everything in between is placed on a curve. “Balanced” (the default) bends the curve slightly so that mid-frequency words stay readable, “Linear” keeps sizes exactly proportional to the counts, and “Gentle” narrows the gap between big and small words. When auto-sizing is on, the tool searches for the largest word size at which every word still fits inside the shape, so a short list produces big, bold words and a long list produces more, smaller ones.

How the layout works, and its limits

Words are placed from the biggest to the smallest. Each one starts at the centre of the shape and moves outwards along a spiral until it finds a free spot. A word is accepted only if its whole box lies inside the shape and does not touch any word already placed, with a small gap kept between words. That makes the layout honest: no two words overlap, and no word crosses the edge of the shape.

The same method has limits worth knowing:

• Each word occupies a rectangle that is a little taller than its letters, so you will see small gaps, especially around words with no ascenders or descenders.
• Sideways words are turned exactly 90 degrees. There are no diagonal words.
• Pointed shapes such as the star and triangle have thin tips that only the smallest words can enter, so tips may stay empty. The heart, star, triangle and cloud keep their proportions inside a square, so choose the Square canvas to use the most room.
• If you ask for more words than the canvas can hold at your smallest size, the words that do not fit are left out, and the tool tells you which ones. Use fewer words, a smaller minimum size or a bigger canvas.
• The layout needs the font’s measurements, so it uses fonts already installed on your device (there are eight choices, from modern sans to handwriting). The exported SVG fixes each word’s width, so words keep their place even if another computer substitutes a different font, though letter shapes may look different.

SVG or PNG?

SVG is a vector format. Each word in the file is real text with its own size, colour and position, not a picture of text, so it can be scaled to any size without blurring, recoloured in tools such as Inkscape or Illustrator, and searched or selected in some viewers. Use it for posters, print, laser cutting, and anywhere you need crisp edges. The font is not embedded, so the file uses the font family named in it if the viewer has it and a similar one if not.

PNG is a bitmap image drawn from the same layout. It looks identical on every device because the letters are baked in, which makes it the safest choice for slides, documents, emails and social posts. Choose 2x or 3x for a sharper image, and Transparent as the background to place the cloud on a coloured slide. For a step-by-step on adding the file to a slide or document, see word clouds in Word, PowerPoint and Google Slides.

Phrases instead of single words

Single words lose meaning: support and customer are less useful than customer support. Choose “Two-word phrases” or “Three-word phrases” and the tool counts runs of adjacent words instead. Phrases never run across a full stop, comma or line break, and a phrase cannot begin or end with a filler word, so of the is ignored while point of view survives as a three-word phrase. Because most phrases occur only once, the minimum count rises to 2 automatically when you switch. The phrase cloud generator page has a worked example.

What are stop words?

Stop words are the very common words that carry little meaning on their own, such as the, and, of, is and to. If you leave them in, they become the biggest words in almost any English text and hide the words you care about. The generator’s lists contain 180 English, 152 Spanish, 132 French, 157 German, 141 Italian and 141 Portuguese function words (articles, pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions and auxiliary verbs). They were written for this site and are deliberately modest, so use the exclusion box for anything else that gets in the way.

Be careful with short answers. The English list includes not, no and very, so a one-line answer such as “not happy” becomes just happy. For survey answers and short replies, try the cloud with filtering switched off as well as on. The survey page shows how this changes a real set of responses.

Tips for a word cloud that reads well

• Use enough text. A few hundred words gives a meaningful spread. In a single sentence nearly every word appears once and the sizes mean nothing.
• Clean the source first. Delete headings, page numbers, speaker labels and copied footers. Anything repeated becomes big.
• Remove the obvious. If the topic word or your brand name dominates, exclude it so the words around it can show.
• Show fewer words. Between 30 and 80 words usually reads best. A hundred and fifty words make everything small.
• Choose contrast over decoration. Dark words on a light background are safest. The generator warns you when a palette is too faint for the background you picked, and the colour-blind safe palette helps if colour carries meaning.
• Keep words horizontal for presentations. Sideways words look lively but are harder to read on a projector.
• Add a caption. Say what the text was and how many words it had, and share the frequency table or the top five counts as text for anyone who cannot see the picture.
• Remember what it shows. Size means frequency, nothing more. colour and color, or teach and teaching, are counted separately, because the tool does not stem or merge word forms.

Word lists, spreadsheets and surveys

If you already have counts, paste them as word, count lines (a comma, semicolon or tab between the word and the number all work, so a copy from Excel or Google Sheets can be pasted as it is). The tool detects the list, uses your numbers instead of counting, and skips a header row. The Excel and CSV guide covers the formats and the traps. For open-ended survey answers, paste one response per line; see the survey word cloud page for how to prepare them and what a cloud cannot tell you.

Privacy: nothing is uploaded

The counting, the layout and the image creation all happen in your browser, using JavaScript on your own device. The text you paste and any file you choose are not sent to a server, and the SVG, PNG and CSV files are created on your device. The only thing the site can remember is your tool settings, and only if you tick “Remember my settings on this device”; that stores options such as shape and colours in your browser and never the text. Read the privacy policy for the full picture, including the advertising on this site.

Which page do you need?

• How to make a word cloud: a longer step-by-step guide with troubleshooting.
• Text to word cloud: exactly how your text is split and counted, with worked examples.
• Phrase cloud generator: counting two-word and three-word phrases.
• Word cloud from Excel or CSV: turn a spreadsheet column or a word and count list into a cloud.
• Word cloud shapes: all eight shapes with examples and their limits.
• For teachers and students: classroom activities and safeguards.
• Survey word clouds: preparing open-ended responses.
• Word, PowerPoint and Google Slides: putting your cloud into a document or deck.
• A free Mentimeter alternative for when you do not need live audience voting.