Timeline

Creating Your Own Timeline in 10 Mins!

Wanted to create your own timeline but found it too techie?

We created this website to help you to create your own timeline in only 3 steps and 10 minutes!

See a live demo first by clicking the image

What You Will Need

A Google account
Your event data

1.

Create your own event data in a Google Spreadsheet. Your spreadsheet needs to contain certain fields like label, start and end dates, ...etc. Worry not! We've created a template for you.

Adding your own data to the Google Spreadsheet

1.1: Follow this link to the template Google SpreadSheet.
(This will open a new browser window.)

1.2: On the right up corner of the template Google Spreadsheet, click "sign in" to sign in to your Google account, so that you can copy this template.

1.3: Copy this template to your Google Docs space: go to the top menu bar, click "File", and click "Make a Copy"

1.4: You are now ready to fill in your own event data! You can give label, description, start and end dates, image, and video to your events! You can categorize your events by assigning each of them a type.

‹ ›

2.

After adding enough data to your spreadsheet, you will need to publish it so that Simile Timeline can load your events and create the visualization.

2.1: Go to the top menu bar, click "File", and click "Publish to the Web".

2.2: In the pop-up window, click the "Start publishing" button.

2.3: A link will be generated in the same pop-up window.

‹ ›

3.

Copy the link to your published event data by selecting the URL and pressing Ctrl+C. Paste it below (Ctrl+V).

The text box is empty! You haven't pasted anything.

4.

Congratulations! Your timeline is done!
Click Here to see.
Note that your Google Spreadsheet is now associated with its own Timeline visualization, which means you can keep modifying data and the changes will reflect on your timeline!

You might want to bookmark the URL for future visits:

Who are we ?

We are Hou Ieong Ho and Shih-Pei Chen, two computer scientists interested in helping humanists to take full advantage of information technologies.

Why do we do this?

This website is an effort born out of the Digital Humanities 2.0 Workshop @ Harvard University, and is inspired by Dennis Tenen, our lecturer who tried to teach the whole class to build their own timeline by following this tutorial by Brian Croxall.

Credits

Simile Timeline visualization: from MIT.
Sample events (in Google Spreadsheet) by Feng-en Tu.

Timeline

What is this ?

Wanted to create your own timeline but found it too techie?

What You Will Need

Step by step

1.

Create your own event data in a Google Spreadsheet. Your spreadsheet needs to contain certain fields like label, start and end dates, ...etc. Worry not! We've created a template for you.

1.

1.1

Follow this link to the template Google SpreadSheet.
(This will open a new browser window.)

1.2

On the right up corner of the template Google Spreadsheet, click "sign in" to sign in to your Google account, so that you can copy this template.

1.3

Copy this template to your Google Docs space: go to the top menu bar, click "File", and click "Make a Copy"

1.4

You are now ready to fill in your own event data! You can give label, description, start and end dates, image, and video to your events! You can categorize your events by assigning each of them a type.

2.

After adding enough data to your spreadsheet, you will need to publish it so that Simile Timeline can load your events and create the visualization.

2.

2.1

Go to the top menu bar, click "File", and click "Publish to the Web".

2.2

In the pop-up window, click the "Start publishing" button.

2.3

A link will be generated in the same pop-up window.

3.

Copy the link to your published event data by selecting the URL and pressing Ctrl+C. Paste it below (Ctrl+V).

The text box is empty! You haven't pasted anything.

3.

4.

Congratulations! Your timeline is done!
Click Here to see.
Note that your Google Spreadsheet is now associated with its own Timeline visualization, which means you can keep modifying data and the changes will reflect on your timeline!

You might want to bookmark the URL for future visits:

4.

Congratulations! Your timeline is done!

About Us

Who are we ?

Why do we do this?

Credits

What is this ?

Wanted to create your own timeline but found it too techie?

What You Will Need

Step by step

1. Create your own event data in a Google Spreadsheet. Your spreadsheet needs to contain certain fields like label, start and end dates, ...etc. Worry not! We've created a template for you.

1.

1.1

Follow this link to the template Google SpreadSheet.(This will open a new browser window.)

1.2

On the right up corner of the template Google Spreadsheet, click "sign in" to sign in to your Google account, so that you can copy this template.

1.3

Copy this template to your Google Docs space: go to the top menu bar, click "File", and click "Make a Copy"

1.4

You are now ready to fill in your own event data! You can give label, description, start and end dates, image, and video to your events! You can categorize your events by assigning each of them a type.

2. After adding enough data to your spreadsheet, you will need to publish it so that Simile Timeline can load your events and create the visualization.

2.

2.1

Go to the top menu bar, click "File", and click "Publish to the Web".

2.2

In the pop-up window, click the "Start publishing" button.

2.3

A link will be generated in the same pop-up window.

3. Copy the link to your published event data by selecting the URL and pressing Ctrl+C. Paste it below (Ctrl+V). The text box is empty! You haven't pasted anything.

3.

4. Congratulations! Your timeline is done!Click Here to see.Note that your Google Spreadsheet is now associated with its own Timeline visualization, which means you can keep modifying data and the changes will reflect on your timeline!You might want to bookmark the URL for future visits:

4.

Congratulations! Your timeline is done!

About Us

Who are we ?

Why do we do this?

Credits

1.

Create your own event data in a Google Spreadsheet. Your spreadsheet needs to contain certain fields like label, start and end dates, ...etc. Worry not! We've created a template for you.

Follow this link to the template Google SpreadSheet.
(This will open a new browser window.)

2.

After adding enough data to your spreadsheet, you will need to publish it so that Simile Timeline can load your events and create the visualization.

3.

Copy the link to your published event data by selecting the URL and pressing Ctrl+C. Paste it below (Ctrl+V).

The text box is empty! You haven't pasted anything.

4.

Congratulations! Your timeline is done!
Click Here to see.
Note that your Google Spreadsheet is now associated with its own Timeline visualization, which means you can keep modifying data and the changes will reflect on your timeline!

You might want to bookmark the URL for future visits: