Wikipedia:VideoWiki/Inkscape Tutorial: Visualizing Demographic Data

This tutorial was created at the Wikigraphists 2018 Bootcamp in Delhi, India. To visualize demographic data, you need 2 applications, namely: Inkscape and Microsoft Excel. Alternatively, LibreOffice can be used instead of Microsoft Excel

Visualizing Demographic Data

Find the data you want to visualize. In this tutorial, we will be visualizing the percentage of male and female population in India based on different age groups. Plot the numeric values of the data in Microsoft Excel. Format the data so that it is suitable for Excel. Select the required data, click on the Insert Tab, and click on Bar Diagram to create an automated Bar Diagram from the input data. Now, one should always save the bar diagram in excel in a vector format such as PDF. It is important not to copy paste the bar diagram in Inkscape as it will read the data as an image file and won't allow you to edit the data.

Open the Inkscape app, Click on the File Menu and Open the PDF File we just saved. The PDF vector of the bar diagram will be imported to Inkscape. Since demographic data is visualized in two-sided charts, we will format the bar diagram into a two-sided chart. Click on the slip icon to arrange the female data to the left. You can also move the numbers and other data accordingly.

Such a plot could not be edited in Excel and therefore, Inkscape really comes in handy to create numerically accurate info graphics.

Copyright Implications

Since data (information) cannot be copyrighted, visualizing demographic data does not fall under the purview of copyright law provided you mention the source of the data.