What is a Sparkline? Edward Tufte popularized the concept of Sparklines in his seminal work, " The Visual Display of Quantitative Information ". He defines them as "small, intense, word-sized graphics with typographic resolution. Sparklines are can be placed anywhere that words or numbers or graphics can be placed: in sentences, maps, graphics, tables." This definition will make more sense after seeing a couple of examples. Here's our first: An Example of Using a Sparkline Graph in a Table This table of historical financial data would just be a wall of numbers to most people, and looking for patterns would be challenging. However, by adding a small, word-sized graphic to each row it is easy to see at a glance some interesting patterns. Why is spending on "Books and Supplies" so much higher in 2019-20 than the rest of the years? How about "Capital Outlay"? Also at a glance it is easy to spot the moment when the district moved from ru...