NodeXL is a free, open-source template for Microsoft® Excel® 2007 and 2010 that makes it easy to explore
network graphs. With NodeXL, you can enter a network edge list in a worksheet, click a button and see your graph, all in the familiar environment of the Excel window.
Visit the NodeXL Graph Gallery to see the wide variety of graphs that have been created by the NodeXL community.
What's New
The latest version of NodeXL introduces grouping by
motif simplification, which is a new way to reduce the visual complexity of your graph. With motif simplification, common repeating network motifs are replaced with easily understandable glyphs that require less space, are easier to understand, and
reveal hidden relationships.
NodeXL can group the graph's vertices using three kinds of motifs. Using fan motifs helps get rid of the large fans of singly-connected vertices around the edge of your graph. Connector motifs, instead, focus on redundant connections between a pair of anchor
vertices. Finally, cliques allow you to simplify completely connected groups of vertices.
To use this new feature, go to NodeXL, Analysis, Groups, By Motif in the ribbon.
This work was done by Cody Dunne and Ben Shneiderman at the University of Maryland. For more information about their work, please see
HCIL-2012-29.
See the
Complete NodeXL Release History for details on additional changes in this release.
NodeXL Features
- Flexible Import and Export Import and export graphs in GraphML, Pajek, UCINet, and matrix formats.
- Direct Connections to Social Networks Import social networks directly from Twitter, YouTube, Flickr and email, or use one of
several available plug-ins to get networks from Facebook, Exchange and WWW hyperlinks.
- Zoom and Scale Zoom into areas of interest, and scale the graph's vertices to reduce clutter.
- Flexible Layout Use one of several "force-directed" algorithms to lay out the graph, or drag vertices around with the mouse. Have NodeXL move all of the graph's smaller connected components to the bottom of the graph to focus
on what's important.
- Easily Adjusted Appearance Set the color, shape, size, label, and opacity of individual vertices by filling in worksheet cells, or let NodeXL do it for you based on vertex attributes such as degree, betweenness centrality or
PageRank.
- Dynamic Filtering Instantly hide vertices and edges using a set of sliders—hide all vertices with degree less than five, for example.
- Powerful Vertex Grouping Group the graph's vertices by common attributes, or have NodeXL analyze their connectedness and automatically group them into clusters. Make groups distinguishable using shapes and color, collapse them
with a few clicks, or put each group in its own box within the graph. "Bundle" intergroup edges to make them more manageable.
- Graph Metric Calculations Easily calculate degree, betweenness centrality, closeness centrality, eigenvector centrality, PageRank, clustering coefficient, graph density and more.
- Task Automation Perform a set of repeated tasks with a single click.
NodeXL for Programmers
The NodeXL template displays graphs using a custom Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) control that can be reused in custom applications. In fact, the template is just an application wrapper around a set of reusable, prebuilt class libraries. Check the
Downloads tab for the latest version of the class libraries.
You can create a .NET assembly that will import graph data from a custom source into the NodeXL template. These "plug-ins" appear in NodeXL's Data, Import menu. See
For Programmers: About NodeXL Graph Data Providers for details.
NodeXL is Brought to You By...
NodeXL was created by Marc Smith's team while he was at Microsoft Research. Smith is now at the
Connected Action Consulting Group.
NodeXL is a project from the Social Media Research Foundation and receives generous support from the
Microsoft Research External Projects Group.
Contributors to NodeXL include:
- Natasa Milic-Frayling,
(Microsoft Research Cambridge)
- Marc Smith, (Connected Action Consulting Group)
- Ben Shneiderman,
(University of Maryland)
- Derek Hansen, (Brigham Young University)
- Cody Dunne,
(University of Maryland)
- Eduarda Mendes Rodrigues, (University of Porto)
- Udayan Khourana,
(University of Maryland)
- Jure Leskovec,
(Stanford University)
- Bernie Hogan,
(Oxford Internet Institute)
- Itai Himelboim, (University of Georgia)
- Libby Hemphill,
Illinois Institute of Technology
- Robert Ackland,
(Australian National University)
- Scott Golder,
(Cornell University)
- Vladimir Barash,
(Morningside Analytics)
Friends of NodeXL include:
- Dan Fay (Microsoft Research Redmond)
- Eric Gleave (formerly at University of Washington, now at Booz Allen Hamilton)
- Adam Perer (formerly at University of Maryland, now at IBM Research)
- Annika Hupfeld, (Microsoft Research Cambridge)
Help Support NodeXL
NodeXL is supported by user donations, which enable us to continually improve the product and respond to
questions and requests. Please help us continue our work by donating to the
Social Media Research Foundation's NodeXL
development fund.
Microsoft and the Office logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries.