The Word Cloud tool visualises text data and categorical information as a cloud of words, where word size indicates frequency. Words that appear more often are displayed larger than less common words.

What is a Word Cloud?

A Word Cloud extracts words from your collection

Collection

A list of records in Kinabase, similar to a table in a spreadsheet or database.

data and displays them in a visual arrangement. The more frequently a word or category appears, the larger it's shown in the cloud.

Why Use Word Clouds?

Spot trends: Quickly identify the most common themes in your data
Analyse feedback: See which words appear most in customer comments or reviews
Understand distributions: Visualise how categories or options are distributed across records
Present insights: Create engaging visual summaries for reports or presentations

Prerequisites

Your collection needs at least one of these field types:

Text fields (Short Text, Long Text)
Option or Multi-Option fields
Record or Multi-Record fields (uses linked record labels)
Computed text or option fields

Enabling Word Cloud

Word Cloud is disabled by default. To enable it:

Open your collection and go to Settings
Find Data Visualisation Tools
Toggle on Word Cloud
Optionally click the cog icon to configure default settings

Using the Word Cloud

1. Open the Word Cloud

From your collection, click the cloud icon in the toolbar at the top of your collection,to open the Word Cloud in the side pane.

2. Select a Field

Use the settings menu in the toolbar to choose which field to visualise:

For text fields: Individual words are extracted and counted (common words like 'the', 'and', etc. are automatically filtered out)
For option/record fields: Each option or linked record label becomes a word, sized by how often it appears

3. Interact with Words

Hover over words to see tooltips showing the word and its count
Click on a word to interact with it

4. Customise the Display

When viewing your Word Cloud, use the toolbar settings (cog icon) to adjust how the Word Cloud appears.

You can define the:

Rotation,
Font
Layout, and
Colours

More details on these settings can be found in the next section.

Supported Field Types

The Word Cloud can visualise data from various field types:

Text Fields

String fields: Words are extracted from free-form text
Rich Text fields: Words are extracted from formatted text content
Computed String fields: Words from dynamically calculated text values

Categorical Fields

Option fields: Each option label is counted as a category
Multi-Option fields: Each selected option is counted individually
Record fields: Labels of linked records are used
Multi-Record fields: Labels of all linked records are counted

Words shorter than 3 characters and common words (like "the", "and", "is") are automatically filtered out.

Display Settings

Access display settings through the cog icon in the toolbar:

Rotation

Control how words are oriented in the cloud:

No rotation: All words displayed horizontally (0°)
Vertical (90°): All words rotated vertically
Mixed (0° and 90°): Words randomly horizontal or vertical (default)
Angled (-60° to 60°): Words at random angles for a more dynamic look

Font

Choose the typeface for the word cloud:

System (Sans-serif): Clean, modern look (default)
Serif: Traditional, formal appearance
Monospace: Technical, code-like style
Impact: Bold, attention-grabbing text (displayed in uppercase)

Layout

Select how words are arranged:

Spiral: Words arranged in a spiral pattern from the centre (default)
Rectangular: Words arranged in a more structured rectangular pattern

Colours

Choose a colour scheme for the words:

Rainbow: Full spectrum of colours (default)
Cool (Blues & Greens): Calming blue and green tones
Warm (Reds & Oranges): Energetic red, orange, and yellow tones
Monochrome: Shades of grey for a subtle look

Configuring Word Cloud Default Settings

Administrators can configure default settings for each collection:

Open Collection Configuration (click ⋯ → Configure)
Navigate to Features → Tools
Find Word Cloud and click the cog icon to open settings

From here you can set your default options:

Default display criteria for rotation, font, layout and colour scheme
Default field to visualise when opening the Word Cloud
Maximum Words: Set the maximum number of words to display (10-500). The default is 100 words. Only the most frequent words up to this limit will be shown.

Example Uses

Creative ways to use Word Clouds

Customer feedback analysis: Visualise common themes in support tickets or reviews
Survey responses: See which answers or comments appear most frequently
Tag analysis: Understand how tags or categories are distributed across records
Content analysis: Identify key topics in articles, notes, or descriptions
Skills mapping: Visualise the most common skills across a team or candidate pool

Tips

Choose the right field: Text fields give you word-level analysis, while Option fields give you category-level counts
Filters apply: The Word Cloud respects your current view filters, so you can analyse subsets of your data
Empty states: If the selected field contains no text data, the Word Cloud will display a message indicating no data is available

Using Kinabase's Word Cloud tool helps you explore your data in interactive, visual ways - spotting trends, analysing feedback, and understanding distributions at a glance.

Read our guide on Data Visualisation Tools to learn about other ways to explore your collection data.

For more help or to report issues, contact your System Admin or contact our Support Team.

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