• Wordle: Probably the most popular site for creating word clouds and is one of the best for creating high-quality printable versions of the image. Paste in a text or put in a website URL and it creates a random word cloud. Change the font, style, colour and limit words. You can also check word counts as well. Print out as an image to save for later (if you have the capability of printing as a PDF, you can then print the cloud as large as you want without problems with losing quality).

• TagCrowd: Paste or upload a text or choose a website URL. Enter your criteria including word limitations and word counts, and create a square type word cloud that can be embedded or printed. The PDF download function didn’t work for me, but it may be just a temporary problem.

• Wispy.me: Grab text from Twitter or Facebook or paste in your text, choose your colour scheme and font, and create an instant word cloud. Save to a unique URL and then download the image to your computer or share with others.

• ABCya! Word Clouds: This is a nice little word cloud generator designed for kids. It can’t handle larger texts (seems to have trouble beyond about 35 words), but the images are nice and can be downloaded as a jpeg image file or printed. You do have some control of fonts, colour, and layout as well.

• WordItOut: This is the only word cloud generator listed here that needs an email address to save it. You can always do a screen shot or put in a temporary email address to get the file. You can paste text or get from a URL and create a word cloud with some control on font, colour, and layout.

• Jason Davies – Word Cloud Generator: A really nice and clean layout with lots of options for how the words or even sentences will be laid out. Download as an SVG or PNG: great for printing.

• HTML5 Word Cloud: A fantastic site with plenty of options for text input including Twitter feeds, WordPress sites, and simple plain text. Change shapes, colour schemes, and sizes. Download as an image.

• Semantic Word Cloud Visualization: Simple to use with some options for changing the appearance. Download as an image or PDF.

• Tagul
  Tagul is the most powerful option of the tools we will examine, but is still very easy to use. Key points about Tagul include: You need an account to use Tagul, but can simply choose to use your Google account to log in so you do not need to create a username and password just for the site. Can add words by typing them in, pasting from a document or spreadsheet, or importing from a website. Can choose from a wide range of shapes, including uploading your own shape. Can adjust fonts, layout of the words, and colors.Can save your word clouds to access or edit later. When done you can download the image, print, or share online from the site. There is a paid version which let you download higher quality images, but otherwise you can do everything in the free version.

• Wordsift
  This tool is simpler than Tagul, but is easy to use and does a nice job, so it would be a good choice if you just need to make a quick word cloud, or perhaps for younger students. Key points include: You do not need an account to use Wordsift. You can add words by pasting them into a large textbox. Then you create the word cloud by clicking the “Sift!” Button. Click the “Cloud Styles” button to change the layout of the cloud. Click the gear icon to open the advanced settings and adjust maximum number of words, font, color, and more. Through the advanced settings you can also download the final result in PNG or SVG format (although the download feature was not working for me when I tried it).

• Word Cloud Generator (from Jason Davies)
  This option is also simpler than Tagul, with fewer options and features, but works well for a quick word cloud. Key points include: You do not need an account to use Word Cloud Generator. You can add words by pasting them into a large textbox. There are only a few options such as type of spiral, font, degree orientations, and number of words. You simply click “Go!” To generate the word cloud. The final result can be downloaded in SVG image format (which will need to be converted to a more common format for many applications).

• Word Cloud Generator add-on for Docs
  Google Docs Add-on link
  Rather than being a website, this tool is actually an Add-on for Google Docs. It has the least amount of options of any of the tools here, but is convenient if you want a word cloud made from the text in your Google Document. Key point include: Install and use as a Google Doc add-on from the Add-on menu. When you run it, a word cloud is displayed in a panel on the right of the document. The word cloud is much smaller than the other tools and does not have an option to resize. You can download the word cloud image by clicking the "Make Downloadable" button.. Advanced options allow you to set the maximum number of words, as well as list words to exclude.

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Updated February 10, 2020