Export an Image From Voyant

Goals: Export a Voyant Tools visualization as a png file

Estimated Time to Complete: 10 minutes

Step 1. Download a Voyant Visualization Image File

You may want to include a visualization from your Voyant Tools exploration into your multimedia essay.

Let’s practice exporting a word cloud from Voyant.

  • Start by choosing a corpus to view in Voyant from those listed below.
  • When you’ve decided on one, click on the green “View in Voyant Tools” button to the right of it. This will take you to a new browser tab to explore that corpus in Voyant.

20th-Century State of the Union Addresses

20th-Century Party Platforms

Remember, the word cloud appears in the top left section of the Voyant dashboard, and shows the raw frequency of the most frequently-appearing words in our corpus.

Expand the word cloud to full screen following these instructions:

  • Hover your mouse just above the word cloud content, to the right of the “Links” button in the toolbar. Look for the icon of a box with an arrow pointing up and out of it. Click on this icon.
image of Voyant wordcloud showing the Export icon
Click on the 'Export' icon (square with arrow)
  • A popup will appear with the Title “Export.” Without clicking on any other options in the popup, click on the blue “Export” button in the bottom left of the popup.
image of Voyant Export popup
Click on the 'Export' button

  • This opens up the word cloud as a full-screen visualization in a new tab in your browser.

  • To export this visualization as an image file, hover your mouse in the white toolbar (not the blue toolbar!) in the top right of the browser window. Look for the icon of a box with an arrow pointing up and out of it. Click on this icon.

image of full screen Voyant word cloud showing the Export icon
Click on the 'Export' icon (square with arrow) in the white toolbar
  • When you click on the export icon, a popup will appear with the Title “Export.”
  • There are two dropdown options within the popup box: “Export View (Tools and Data)” and “Export Visualization.” Click on “Export Visualization.”
  • Two options will appear below “Export Visualization”: “export a PNG image of this visualization,” and “export the SVG of this visualization.” Select “export a PNG image of this visualization.” Then click the blue “Export” button in the bottom left of the popup.
image of Voyant Export popup, with 'export visualization' selected
Select 'export a PNG image'
  • A popup will appear with the title “Export PNG.” A PNG is a type of image file. We want to save it to our computer and then upload it to our GitHub repository.
  • On the right side of the popup, there is a preview of the word cloud. Right-click or press ctrl and click on the word cloud preview.
image of Voyant Export PNG popup, with option to right-click thumbnail preview
Right-click the world cloud thumbnail preview
  • This brings up a menu with several options, one of which is “Save Image As…”. Select “Save Image As…”
image of Voyant Export PNG popup, with option menu displayed
Select 'Save Image As...'

  • At this point you’ll need to give this image file a name. Avoid using spaces in your filename. Instead separate words by hyphens (-) or underscores (_). Try to be as specific with the name as possible, such as “party-platforms-20th-century-word-cloud,” so you don’t get confused later.

  • After you’ve named it, pay attention to the location where you are saving this file. In most cases, your computer will automatically save objects that you download into the “Downloads” folder, but it’s good to check to make sure. Leave the image format just as it is (PNG format for default), and click “Save.”

image of file naming and saving process
Name your file something descriptive, and save it to your computer's 'Downloads' folder or a folder of your choice

Step 2. Add an Image File to Your Multimedia Essay

Now that you’ve downloaded the image, you can add it to your essay following the Image Includes instructions covered earlier in this course.

Text Analysis With Voyant Topic Modeling