In this talk I will present the concept of word-scale visualizations and show some examples of their application. Word-scale visualizations are graphical encodings of data that are roughly word-sized (ranging from the size of a single character to several words) that are placed in context with text. Based on a qualitative study I will show potential designs and explain why word-scale visualizations can be useful. A focus of this talk will be where to place word-scale visualizations by proposing a design space of placement options and quantify the effects of the visualizations’ placement on the layout and flow of the text. As word-scale visualizations also have implications on the reader’s reading behavior I will present a first study that investigates different word-scale visualization positions on reading behavior. To conclude I will discuss the combination of word-scale visualizations with interaction methods. To support an active reading behaviour I propose interaction methods to collect, arrange and compare word-scale visualizations.