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Visuals pulls data from your Google account to make visualizations. To start making a timeline, put your data into Google Sheets.
First, go to docs.google.com. You'll see the Google log in page.
You can use any Google address as the account. Remember, UVA students have "@virginia.edu" addresses that work with Google Drive.
Enter your emailEnter your UVa email, then click Next. Log in with your Netbadge credentials. You'll see the University of Virginia Google Drive page (or the standard Google Drive page if you entered a non-UVa address).
Click New, then Google Sheets to make your new spreadsheet.
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The default setting restricts sharing to UVa UVA viewers. We need to make a few more changes so anyone with a link can access your data. If you're not using a UVA Google Drive Account, you can skip ahead to the next section.
First, click Anyone at UVa with the link can view. You'll see extra options. Click More to see all privacy options.
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At this point, you should pull up our Timeline guide for quick reference. This gives you the specifics for data formattingtells you how to format your data so Visuals can read it. In general, you'll use individual chart guides in our Visualization Index to find out about formatting.
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Make sure to copy the names exactly as they're written in the index., which we've copied below:
Now, fill in your data for each cell. You'll see from the Timeline guide that each row represents an event on the timeline. We've entered four events in the example below. This data was taken from the Thomas Jefferson Foundation's website.
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To freeze the first row, click View in the top menu, then Freeze. Choose 1 row. A grey gray line will appear under this row.
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The Timeline reference guide also has specific data types for each column. Luckily, our example is easy: every column should be in the "plain text" data type.
To set the data type, select your column. Click Format from the menu, then Number. Choose Plain Text. Do this for each column.
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Signing in to Visuals lets you create visualizations. If you've never used Visuals before, signing in for the first time also creates your account.
Go to the external visuals.shanti.virginia.edu. Click on the Main Menu icon () in the top right corner. Then, Log in via Netbadge.
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You'll see the visualization editor and a preview of your timeline. Now we need to add your spreadsheet to the editor. Find the "Source of events" field and click on the triangle Google Drive icon next to it. You'll see a list of your Google Drive accounts. Log in to the account you used to make your that holds your data spreadsheet.
Google will ask if you give Shanti permission to see your files: click Allow. You'll see a Google Drive window in Visuals with a list of your files.
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You'll see a preview of your timeline in the editor.
Now we'll use the options in the sidebar to customize your timeline.
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You can then enter the name of the icon you want to add: here we're using "plus_green.png." Check the Visualization Index to see all your icon options.
Now let's change the color of the background to something more UVA-appropriate. Click Background colors, then enter the hexadecimal code for UVA orange (E57200) in the "main background" field. Click OK to apply the color.
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To finish making your timeline, give the visualization a title in the "Title" field at the top of the page, then choose Public under the "Visibility" options at the bottom of the page.
Save your visualization.
Now you're finished with your project. To learn more about Visualizations, you can use these Visuals in Mandala guide.