Blogging Graphs

The good folks at Swivel have made it easire than ever to add graphs to a blog entry.

You begin by either creating or selecting a graph at Swivel. I've been talking with folks about global demographic trends and their potential impacts in local communities, so I chose fertility rates in OECD countries.

The next step is to look under the graph at "Share this graph". Under the send-to-e-mail link is "post to blog" -- they make it pretty easy. When I click that, I get a page with a helpful note pointing out which text to copy and paste into HTML, and some options on what size graph I want. I choose medium, and try below:



That seems a little cluttered, so I refocus on just U.S. fertility rates:



Then, because I'm interested in sparklines, I try a sparkline version of the same graph:

This turns out to be as simple as Swivel promised. Send me your examples of using graphs in your blogs. In the meantime, I'll gather a bit more information on the global trends we're looking at, and an upcoming conference to discuss how they effect local community planning effort.