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Google Docs Motion Chart Google Docs now offer an innovative spreadsheet analysis gadget named Motion Charts that can plot such data in an interactive Flash animation. Creating charts from a given data is usually a mundane task that you would much rather assign to your administrator. What makes it even more boring is the limited number of tools available. Add to it the difficulty of analysing trends over time between two indicators - such as gender-wise literacy percentage over a decade.

Google Docs Motion Chart

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Page 1: Google Docs Motion Chart

Google Docs Motion Chart

Google Docs now offer an innovative spreadsheet analysis gadget named

Motion Charts that can plot such data in an interactive Flash animation.

Creating charts from a given data is usually a mundane task that you would much

rather assign to your administrator. What makes it even more boring is the limited

number of tools available. Add to it the difficulty of analysing trends over time

between two indicators - such as gender-wise literacy percentage over a decade.

Google Docs now offer an innovative analysis gadget named Motion Charts that

can plot such data in an interactive Flash animation. As the name suggests, Motion

Charts show numeric values travel across the graph canvas as time passes beneath

with a horizontal scroll - similar to a movie playback.

Page 2: Google Docs Motion Chart

Here's how to make use of Google Motion Chart gadget.

1. Register and login at Google Docs. Google Account or Gmail users can simply

login with their existing email and password.

2. Create a new spreadsheet file using Create New > Spreadsheet menu on the top

left.

3. Click on Insert > Gadget in the new spreadsheet. A list of gadgets is displayed -

scroll down and select Motion Chart from Featured category, or from Charts

category displayed in the Add a Gadget window. Click on Add to Spreadsheet

button.

4. Now add some sample data to see how Motion Chart works. Start with three

columns - City, Year and Population. Add dummy values - say, population of any

three cities in last three years. This will make nine rows. Note that without the data in

required format, Motion Chart gadget produces the error message, “First and

second columns must be entity and time”. In our case, entity is City column and time

is Year column.

5. Click the field Range in the gadget. The field becomes yellow in colour, showing

that the cells selected in the spreadsheet will automatically be considered as range

for the Motion Chart. Select the table with sample data created in the previous step.

Page 3: Google Docs Motion Chart

6. As an option, add a chart title and select colours/ size of motion bubbles. Use the

checkbox next to city names to add captions to the motion bubbles. Click on the

Apply button so that the chart gadget gets updated.

7. Set the indicators to be displayed at X and Y axis in the chart gadget.

There are three options in the drop-down menus at both the axis. In this sample data

created for this example, these options include:

a) Alphabetical - selects first column entries, i.e., city names

b) Time - this selects second column entries, i.e., years, and

c) Population - keep the time on X axis and population on Y axis. The bubbles that

appear in the graph represent population of cities in a particular year.

8. Click on the Play button at the bottom to see the bubbles move starting from

lowest year going to the highest - animating population trend over time. Adjacent to

the play button, there is speed controller and while the Motion Graph is paused,

trend can be viewed by manual dragging of the progress bar scroll.

9. At the top-right, there's a small icon to convert the bubble Motion Chart into a bar

graph with similar functionality and interactivity. In either of the modes, the user is

free to change basic chart options right from the gadget itself without having to alter

chart properties in any other menu.

Page 4: Google Docs Motion Chart

10. Click on the Apply and Close button once you are done with the settlings of

Motion Chart. It will now appear in the spreadsheet and can be dragged anywhere

like a chart object in other offline spreadsheet programmes.

Motion Chart is a new and exciting way of creating stunning dynamic graphs which

are visually much more informative than the traditional static charts. It can be used to

plot any two indicators over time to provide a clear visibility in scenarios such as

human development indexes. In general, any indicator that varies over time can be

plotted using Motion Charts.

If you want an example, check out http://johnbowman.net/2009/04/22/google-docs-

motion-chart-test/. Percentage of Canadian population aged 65 or over, by province;

projected from 2006 to 2031.

Google Motion Chart does not have an Export feature. However Trend Compass

software allows you to export a Google Motion Chart into software such as

Microsoft PowerPoint. Trend Compass software also has another great feature

that allows you to record your own voice while the Google Motion Chart is

displayed. Then you can export the Google Motion Chart as an AVI file. Google

Motion Chart spreadsheets can be shared on the web or embedded inside a VLE.