All posts created by Gmane – Forums

# 7 years ago
Gmane Member	I managed to make it work with acceptable results in the end. For the benefit of anyone else trying here's what I did… 1. Initially, I'd used only horizontal words. This resulted in some words being quite small due to the above mentioned algorithm (totally understandable). 2. For my second attempt, I chose a mix of horizontal and vertical words. This was better but still resulted in some very small words in a few places. I kept hitting Visualise until a good mixture of words appeared that emphasised the words I wanted, and had a minimum of tiny words. Took a few goes but got a good "base" image after a dozen or so attempts. 3. I exported to vector format (EPS or SVG would do) and used Inkscape to open the file. I was able to do a little bit of manual shuffling around of the words and resize the smaller ones to fit better. It took a little bit of manual work but it wasn't too hard or time consuming. The end result is better than my first attempt so I'm happy. I ended up using two of my five downloads but I've not got a specific use for the others so I'm not going to bother asking for a refund. I'm generally quite happy, but I do wish there was a few more "advanced" ways to tweak the algorithm a bit. You are definitely still the most flexible word cloud generator I've found for what I needed, and I think your pricing model is pretty fair too. Thank you! Edited 04 Mar, 2017 10:23

# 7 years ago

Gmane

I managed to make it work with acceptable results in the end.
For the benefit of anyone else trying here's what I did…
1. Initially, I'd used only horizontal words. This resulted in some words being quite small due to the above mentioned algorithm (totally understandable).

2. For my second attempt, I chose a mix of horizontal and vertical words. This was better but still resulted in some very small words in a few places. I kept hitting Visualise until a good mixture of words appeared that emphasised the words I wanted, and had a minimum of tiny words. Took a few goes but got a good "base" image after a dozen or so attempts.

3. I exported to vector format (EPS or SVG would do) and used Inkscape to open the file. I was able to do a little bit of manual shuffling around of the words and resize the smaller ones to fit better.

It took a little bit of manual work but it wasn't too hard or time consuming. The end result is better than my first attempt so I'm happy.

I ended up using two of my five downloads but I've not got a specific use for the others so I'm not going to bother asking for a refund. I'm generally quite happy, but I do wish there was a few more "advanced" ways to tweak the algorithm a bit.

You are definitely still the most flexible word cloud generator I've found for what I needed, and I think your pricing model is pretty fair too. Thank you! smile

Edited 04 Mar, 2017 10:23

# 7 years ago
Gmane Member	Hi, I've read the FAQ about how the size is used, but I'm struggling to generate an image that has the correct mix of sizes of the words. I have specifically purchased the 5 HQ downloads package from you so I can download an EPS version of the generated word cloud. My first attempt was rejected by the printers (actually engravers as this is going onto glass) as containing words that are too small. If I select the option to "use size column from words table", the sizes are proportionally correct to each other, but I have no control over the maximum and minimum sizes selected. If I reduce the word count down to something very small, like 5, then the words are printed small in a sea of blank space. If I select the option to "maximize" then with small word counts things are generally OK, but as soon as I increase the count to anything above ~25 (I have about 80 "phrases" as opposed to single words to try and include), then very large text appears and very small text fills in some really small spaces between the words. The variation in font size here is the jarring bit. Is there any way to control this more fine grained. I really just want to have an option to use two fixed sizes of font and fit them in as best they can. The current algorithm appears to try and fill in the whitespace first and foremost and the size can vary wildly. I really want something that gives more weighting to an overall min+max font size otherwise the end result is not usable for engraving. Any advice/thoughts?

# 7 years ago

Gmane

Member

Hi,

I've read the FAQ about how the size is used, but I'm struggling to generate an image that has the correct mix of sizes of the words.

I have specifically purchased the 5 HQ downloads package from you so I can download an EPS version of the generated word cloud. My first attempt was rejected by the printers (actually engravers as this is going onto glass) as containing words that are too small.

If I select the option to "use size column from words table", the sizes are proportionally correct to each other, but I have no control over the maximum and minimum sizes selected. If I reduce the word count down to something very small, like 5, then the words are printed small in a sea of blank space.

If I select the option to "maximize" then with small word counts things are generally OK, but as soon as I increase the count to anything above ~25 (I have about 80 "phrases" as opposed to single words to try and include), then very large text appears and very small text fills in some really small spaces between the words. The variation in font size here is the jarring bit.

Is there any way to control this more fine grained. I really just want to have an option to use two fixed sizes of font and fit them in as best they can. The current algorithm appears to try and fill in the whitespace first and foremost and the size can vary wildly. I really want something that gives more weighting to an overall min+max font size otherwise the end result is not usable for engraving.

Any advice/thoughts?