This post is one of a series of blog posts from the first ONA class of MJ Bear Fellows describing their experiences, projects and sharing their knowledge with the ONA community. Fellow Lucas Timmons is a data journalist and web producer for The Edmonton Journal in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

Sometimes when dealing with data, you’re given incredibly useless PDF files instead of databases and csv files. When a government agency gives you a database but refuses to give you a spreadsheet or .csv file, it could be in the hopes that the data will be too difficult and time-consuming to use to tell a story. The agency might be hoping you just forget it because it’s too difficult to work with. However, there is a tool that can help you liberate that data.

You can use Pdftotext to convert PDF files into plain text files. This makes them much easier to manipulate and work with.

This post is one of a series of blog posts from the first ONA class of MJ Bear Fellows describing their experiences, projects and sharing their knowledge with the ONA community. Fellow Lucas Timmons is a data journalist and web producer for The Edmonton Journal in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

Data journalism can be very compelling. Stitched with a good narrative, it can tell one amazing story. But we can do better than that. We can also visualize the data and provide a great package. With that in mind, here are three free options for creating animated and interactive charts.

Google charts API

Google offers great, free and easy chart building tools. There are 14 different types of visualizations in all to choose from, including bar charts, bubble charts, treemaps, gauges and tables.

The charts can be made interactive or static and used in print as well as online. Google also provides a quick start guide so designers can get up and running. All the code is included — just modify it to suit your needs.

Google tries to make this very simple and accessible. Even if your knowledge of HTML and JavaScript is limited, you should be able to use Google charts easily.

What is it?

It’s a better way to store your documents. It enhances your files, allowing you to search, annotate, store and make notes on different documents, as well as cross referencing them against what you already have in your stash.

How it works:

It runs on Calais, which is essentially a smart tagging system. It improves on the idea of keywords by one important step – it also links important people and ideas, and sorts the information in a way that mimics thinking.

The ONA Issues Tumblr is your platform to define and explore the pressing issues in digital media and get a better fix on how they impact your work. Here are the top five posts from last week.

• Objectivity and modern journalism: What can we learn from the Occupy Wall Street journalist firings? ONA ponders the line between journalist and participant in the digital age. Read more
   
• Christopher Soghoian, a doctoral candidate in security infomatics, argues that it’s critical for journalists to learn to protect their data. Read more