How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

You’re probably familiar with the old adage “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This certainly applies when you are trying to present or explain complex data.

Using graphs and charts is useful for making statistical data a lot easier to grasp.

You can present information using tables, but if you want your audience to try and make sense of complex data with numbers, trends and relationships more easily, then graphs and charts are perfect for helping them understand the data.

Charts and graphs help present complex information so people can more easily understand it!

Need to add charts and graphs to WordPress? This tutorial shows you how to use WordPress Visualizer – a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that allows you to create, manage and embed beautiful and mobile-responsive graphs into your WordPress posts and pages that:

• Your site visitors can engage with
• Lets you add data from your computer or an online source of data
• Is fully responsive for mobile screens

If you are displaying visual data like pie charts, comparison bars or trending graphs which contain information that is not going to change (e.g. historical data), a simple method you can use is to create the charts or graphs using an image editing application, convert these into images and then simply insert the image files into your page or post.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to easily embed dynamic bars and graphs into WordPress with no coding skills required, the easiest way to do this is to use a plugin.

Fortunately, there is a plugin for WordPress that is simple to install, easy-to-use and allows you to not only create eye-catching and interactive graphs and charts, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with updatable content.

Visualizer – WP Plugin

Visualizer Plugin URL

You can install the plugin inside your WordPress dashboard (we show you how to do this further down the page), or download Visualizer the WordPress plugin directory using the link below:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Visualizer Plugin Description

Visualizer is a simple, easy to use and powerful plugin that lets you create, manage and insert attractive and interactive graphs into your WordPress posts and pages in a few mouse clicks.

The plugin 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 add-ons are required.

Visualizer also comes with a variety of built-in optimized for 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 flexible and customizable, allowing you to use Google Chart Tools with their default setting, or configure an extensive set of options to match your site’s design. Several options are available for each chart that let you further 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 web visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile web browsers without having to install extra plugins.

Plugin Installation

From your WP administration area, select Plugins > Add New from the dashboard menu …

In the Add Plugins page type in search for “visualizer” and click enter …

Locate the item in the search results area and click the “Install Now” button …

Click OK to proceed …

Activate the plugin after installation is successful …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins section …

Once your plugin has been activated, click on Library …

You can get to the plugin’s ‘library’ screen by choosing Media > Visualizer Library in your dashboard menu …

This takes you to the plugin’s Visualizer Library section …

When you first install the plugin, the library section will be empty.

The next step is to add the charts and graphs to your library that you will want to display in your pages or posts.

Visualizer Plugin Configuration

To add a chart or graph to the plugin’s library, click on ‘Add New’ …

A gallery displaying all the types of graphs available will load on your screen.

Select the type of chart or graph you would like to create and click on the ‘Next’ button …

Your graph/chart type will pop up in a lightbox.

The next step is to upload a CSV file that contains all the data you would like your chart or graph to be populated with …

When creating your CSV data file, make sure that:

• Your first row includes your column headings.
• Your second row contains the series type (e.g. string, date, etc.)

The screenshot below shows how to format your data correctly …

If you are unsure about how to format your CSV file, just refer to the sample CSV file supplied with the plugin.

Next, select the data source (‘From Computer’ or ‘From Web’) in the ‘Upload CSV File’ section.

Upload CSV File From Computer

To upload the CSV file from your hard drive select ‘From Computer‘ …

Locate and select your data file and then click on ‘Open‘ …

The plugin will now import the data and display it using the graph/chart type 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:

• How To Populate Data Using Google Spreadsheet

After importing the data, check that all of your information is correct (if not, click on the ‘Back’ button and reupload a data file with the correct data), and click ‘Next‘ …

Depending on the chart or graph type selected, the plugin displays a range of customization options …

The plugin gives you full control over your information, and updates your display in real time …

For example, the pie chart offers many configurable options, including:

• General Settings – Configure settings for the chart’s title, 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 a 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 are satisfied with the way your graph or chart appears, click Create Chart …

The chart or graph will now be added to your ‘Visualizer Library’ section …

Note that every new element is given a unique ID displayed in a shortcode. As you will see in just a moment, this allows you to embed charts and graphs into your content easily …

Graphs and charts added to the Visualizer Library can easily be accessed by their type …

After a new graph or chart has been added to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit it, duplicate it, or trash it …

Plugin Usage

Once you’ve created a element and added it to Visualizer, it’s very easy to insert it into pages or posts.

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 chart or graph to be inserted into your content and click the “insert” icon …

This will place a shortcode into your content …

Once you have finished adding the item, click on Publish to publish (or update) your content …

After the post has been updated, click ‘View post’ to see it …

Your item will appear in the location you specified …

As mentioned earlier, the plugin also displays responsive graphs for mobile devices …

As you can see, WordPress Visualizer allows you to add and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can change your data and the changes will automatically be reflected throughout your site. This makes adding dynamic chart data in WordPress very easy.

The developers of this plugin have created a series of step-by-step tutorials you can use to learn how to edit, customize and use the Visualizer plugin for WordPress.

For additional tutorials on editing, cloning, deleting and adding data to your charts, refer to the site below:

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

Congratulations! Now you know how to easily create great-looking and interactive bar charts and graphs in WordPress.

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