We all have those posts that we can’t find a suitable picture for. Either nothing we have really fits the topic, or we don’t have time to search the internet for a free image we can use to illustrate our post. Personally, I like to have at least one image in every post to help brighten up the page.

This week, a fellow blogger, Zemalf, introduced me to Wordle.

Wordle is a word cloud creator, and much like the tag cloud boxes seen on some blogs, it uses a block of text to create a beautiful, unique image. The more a word is used, the larger the font will be. It’s a great way to see, at a glance, what a post is all about! Wordle allows you to pick different colors for your cloud so you can have some fun it! Best of all, it’s free!

To use, go to Wordle.net/create

Insert some text into the top box, and hit Go!

When the cloud is created, play with the colors, layouts, and fonts. Or, you can hit the Randomize button until you find a combination you like.

Then you can either publish to the public gallery and retrieve a block of HTML code to place in your post, or you can use a free screen capture program like ScreenHunter to take a picture of the cloud and then upload that picture to your post.

I’ve created a short video on how to use Wordle, but it’s so simple you shouldn’t need it.

And, if you like politics, or simply want to see another cool use for Wordle, check out GoverningDynamo’s project where they took every presidential inaugural address and made a word cloud from each one!