I’ve found a great way to use graphs and charts to illustrate your point on your lenses. The best part is that the graphs and charts will automatically update when you update the data in the spreadsheet for the chart or graph.

I stumbled across this while I was playing with google docs a few weeks ago and have been meaning to share it with you all.

Here’s the short and dirty tutorial on inserting a graph on your lens:

  1. Create a google docs spreadsheet or upload an existing spreadsheet to google docs. By creating or uploading a spreadsheet with the data you want to graph you are able to create a graph through google’s graphing features.
  2. Create a graph or chart by clicking on the graphing icon in the the google docs toolbar. (Don’t know how to do that? Here’s an instructional video.)
  3. In the top right hand corner of your brand new chart is a menu titled, appropriately enough, ‘Chart’. Click it and select ‘Publish Chart’.
  4. Copy and paste the HTML code that is given to you into your lens, Presto! You have a chart in your lens.

Why this is cool

The chart is dynamic, meaning if you change the data in your spreadsheet the chart will automatically change on your lens.

Charts are great for helping to illustrate large amounts of data or relative importance of different items. They can really add a nice multimedia flavor to a lens. Careful you don’t overdo it though, one is probably plenty for all but the most technically oriented lenses.

Here is an example of a squidoo lens with a google chart embedded in it.