How to Make an Interactive Timeline with TimeGraphics

Emerson
Tue, 08 Nov 2022 22:19:57 +0000
Week 9, Tutorial

A publicly available timeline made using TimeGraphics, found here

TimeGraphics is a website that allows anyone to create an interactive timeline online without paying anything. Timelines made with this site can easily be sent between people and embedded in blogs or websites of your own. The site can be useful for visualizing any project with a historical background and laying out the structure of future plans, like how certain countries plan to fight climate change in the next 100 years, for example. It also allows users to add statistics and links to other resources. This tutorial will demonstrate how to make timelines with various elements and allow you to make timelines of varying complexity.

Getting Started

Although making timelines is free, saving and sharing your work requires that you enter your name and email, so be prepared to do that once you are happy with your timeline. Once on time.graphics, click create to get to the editor. Then, click anywhere to create an item, which will bring up a circular menu of 10 options. Let’s start by making an event or time period.

Add an event

Add a time period

Adding Statistics

Now that you can create events and time periods, you can make an entire timeline. This software offers a lot more though. Let’s add some statistics by clicking on the line icon toward the bottom right of our options wheel. There are a few options as to how you can input your statistics.

You can write the values in by hand for small datasets…

Or, if you get the premium service, you can upload files directly using the button with the paper icon in the top right…

but I would suggest you click on the “Raw” toggle above the data field, converting your data to the same format, and pasting your data in there. There is no limit on how much text you can input, and this way of inputing your data is free.

Adding Links to Other Resources

If you would like to add references to locations, videos, images, or other linkable items, select the item you would like to add to and choose one of the options in the top right of the editor. The software easily supports adding locations using the map icon, which can be very useful when demonstrating historical events.

Changing the Background

To change the background of your timeline, click the camera icon at the top of the editor and upload a high-quality photo. Using a dark photo or one with too many different colors can make your timeline look chaotic, so changing the background should only be done if you have a high-quality photo that doesn’t distract too much from the content of the timeline. You will have to make an account to complete this.

Embedding and Sharing

First, save your timeline. You can then select one of the options to export, embed, or share the link.

Click embed and copy the direct link to send the timeline to other people. If you would like to embed the timeline in your own blog or website, copy the HTML and put it in your own site. If the embed says that your timeline doesn’t exist, make sure that the id in the HTML is the same as the number after time.graphics/line/ in your search bar when you view your timeline. If you would like to export the timeline as a file, click export and choose from the many options of filetypes.

The various filetypes in which timelines can be exported

Other Useful Information

For a more detailed overview of the software and its potential, watch this video. On top of that, if you have more in-depth questions about the premium version or are curious about other functionalities of the software, take a look at the site’s FAQ.