How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress
You’ve no doubt heard the old adage “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This certainly applies when you are presenting and explaining complex information.
Graphs and charts are a great way to break up technical and boring information, and make technical data a whole lot simpler to digest.
You can use tables to present data, but if you want your audience to try and interpret complex data with figures, trends or relationships easily, then graphs and charts are perfect for helping them interpret your data.
Charts and graphs help you present complex data so your audience can more easily interpret it!
If you want to display information visually and dynamically on your WordPress site using graphs and charts, this tutorial will show you how to create attractive and updateable charts and graphs to your WordPress pages and posts that:
- Your web visitors can interact with
- Allows you to add graph or chart data from your computer or a web-based data source
- Is fully responsive for mobile browsing
If you plan to display visual data like bar charts, comparison graphs or trending graphs that contain static information (e.g. historical data), an easier way to add this information is to create the graphs or charts using an image editing application, convert these into images and then simply insert the image files into your posts or pages.
Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins
If you want to add interactive bars and pie graphs to WordPress with no coding skills required, the easiest way to do this is to use a plugin.
Fortunately, there is a great WordPress plugin that is simple to install, easy-to-use and allows you to not only create beautiful and mobile-responsive graphs and charts, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with updatable data.
Visualizer
Visualizer Plugin URL
You can install the plugin in your WP dashboard (see further below), or access and download Visualizer from the link below:
http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer
Plugin Description
WP Visualizer is an easy-to-use and powerful plugin that lets you create, manage and insert dynamic graphs into your WordPress posts and pages with just a few mouse clicks.
Visualizer uses Google Visualization API to render charts, which support cross-browser compatibility (adopting VML for older IE versions) and cross-platform portability to iOS and new Android releases, and are based on pure HTML5/SVG technology (adopting VML for old IE versions), so no additional plugins are needed.
Visualizer also contains a variety of charts that are optimized to address all your data visualization needs, including:
- Line chart
- Area chart
- Bar chart
- Column chart
- Pie chart
- Geo chart
- Gauge chart
- Candlestick chart
- Scatter chart
Visualizer is a flexible and customizable plugin, allowing you to use Google Chart Tools with their default setting, or configure an extensive set of options to match the look and feel of your website. Various options are available for each chart that allow you to customize their look and feel.
Additionally, charts are rendered using HTML5/SVG technology to provide cross-browser compatibility (including VML for older IE versions) and cross platform portability to iPhones, iPads and Android devices. Your site visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile devices without requiring the installation of extra software.
Plugin Installation
From your WordPress admin area, select Plugins > Add New from the dashboard menu …
In the Add Plugins screen type in search for “visualizer” and click enter …
Locate the entry in the search results area and click Install Now …
Click OK to go ahead …
Activate the plugin after installation is successful …
You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins area …
Once the plugin has been activated, click on Library …
You can get to the plugin’s ‘library’ screen by selecting Media > Visualizer Library from your dashboard menu …
This brings up the plugin’s Visualizer Library screen …
After installing the plugin, the library section will be empty.
Your next step is to add the charts and graphs to your library that you plan to display in your posts and pages.
How To Configure The Plugin
To add a new graph or chart to the Visualizer library, click on the Add New button …
A gallery displaying all of the types of graphs and charts available will come up on your screen.
Select the chart or graph type you would like to create and click on the ‘Next’ button …
The selected graph/chart type will open up in a new window.
The next step is to upload a CSV file that contains your data …
When creating your CSV data file, make sure that:
- Your first row contains your column headings.
- Your second row includes the series type (e.g. boolean, date, etc.)
The screenshot below shows how to format your data correctly …
If you are unsure about how to format your data CSV, simply download the sample provided with the plugin.
Once you have done this, select the data source (‘From Computer’ or ‘From Web’) in the ‘Upload CSV File’ section.
Upload CSV File From Computer
To upload your CSV file from your hard drive select ‘From Computer‘ …
Locate and select your data file and then click on ‘Open‘ …
The plugin imports your data and displays it using the graph/chart type you have previously selected …
Upload CSV File From The Web
To learn how to create, save and publish data to a Visualizer chart or graph using Google Spreadsheet, go here:
After importing your data, make sure that all of the information is correct (if not, click on the ‘Back’ button and reupload a new data file with the correct data), and click ‘Next‘ …
Depending on the chart or graph type selected, the plugin displays a number of customization options and settings …
Visualizer gives you complete control over your information, and updates your display in real time …
For example, the pie chart offers many configurable options, including:
- General Settings – Configure chart title settings, font styles, tooltip, and legend.
- Pie Settings – Create 3D pie charts, draw slices counterclockwise, set the text content displayed on the slice, create a “donut” pie chart, rotate the chart’s “start” angle and set the slice border color.
- Residue Settings – Set the ‘Visibility Threshold’ (the slice relative part, below which a slice will not show individually.), ‘Residual Slice Label’ (the label for the combination slice that holds all slices below slice visibility threshold, e.g. “Other”), and ‘Residue Slice Color’.
- Slice Settings – Customize the ‘Slice Offset’ (how far to separate the slice from the rest of the pie), and ‘Slice Color’.
- Layout & Chart Area – Configure the layout (total size of chart) including the width and height of the chart as a number of percentage, background color for the main area of the chart and the chart border width and color, and the placement and size of the chart area (where the chart itself is drawn, excluding axis and legends).
Once you’re satisfied with the look of your chart or graph, click Create Chart …
The new chart or graph will now be added to your Visualizer ‘Library’ …
Note that new elements are given a unique ID displayed as a shortcode. As you will see shortly, this lets you easily insert graphs and charts into your content …
Graphs and charts added to the Visualizer Library can be accessed by their type …
After adding a new element to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit its details, clone it, or delete it …
Plugin Usage
After you have created a new element and added it to the Visualizer Library, it’s easy to insert it into your content.
First, create a new post or page (or open an existing one) …
Next, place your mouse cursor where you would like to insert your visual element into the content and click on the ‘Add Media‘ button …
Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …
Select the element you want to insert into your content and click the “insert” icon …
This will add a shortcode for the element into your content …
Once you have added the shortcode, click on Publish to publish (or update) your page or post …
After publishing your post/page, click ‘View post’ to see the result …
The chart or graph will appear in the content …
As mentioned earlier, Visualizer also displays responsive charts and graphs for mobile screens …
As you can see, WordPress Visualizer allows you to insert and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can edit your data and your changes will automatically be reflected wherever you have inserted your charts, graphs, comparison bars , etc. in your website. This is very convenient if you’re managing interactive graph information in WordPress.
The developers of this plugin have created a number of step-by-step tutorials you can refer to to learn how to edit, customize and use WordPress Visualizer.
For tutorials on editing, copying, deleting and adding data to your charts, go to the website below:
Congratulations! Now you know how to easily create attractive and mobile-responsive pie charts and graphs in WordPress with WP Visualizer.
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"Wow! I never knew there's so much to learn about WordPress! I bought one of the WordPress for Dummies three years ago, such authors need to be on this course!" - Rich Law, Create A Blog Now
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