Sparklines : Intense Wordlike Graphics

I have encountered this word Sparklines several times on the web. I am sure you must have too. Out of curiosity, I went looking for it today.

What is Sparklines?
Sparklines a format developed by Edward Tufte , noted expert in information design, for small graphic charts which can be inserted within text on a page. In short – Sparklines are “intense, simple, wordlike graphics” so named by Edward Tufte.

Some examples like or

How to use it?
You can start right away by dynamically creating a sparkline using the Sparkline Generator Web Application, or use the sparkline web service or downloading the code and running the sparkline service on your own server.

With the aim to increase the adoption of sparklines on the web – a high-quality PHP sparkline library is available. Now I leave you to investigate into its uses!