How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

You’ve heard the saying “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This certainly applies when you’re trying to present or explain data.

Charts and graphs are a great way to make data simpler to grasp.

You can present information using tables, but if you want people to try and make sense of complex information with figures, percentages or relationships more easily, then graphs and charts allow you to present the data in a meaningful and intelligent manner that can be quickly and easily understood.

Charts and graphs help explain complex information so people can more easily interpret it!

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

• Your site visitors can interact with
• Allows you to upload data from your hard drive or an online data source
• Will resize dynamically for mobile viewers

If you are displaying visual data like bar charts, comparison graphs or trending graphs containing static information (e.g. historical data), an easier way to add your information is to create the graphs or charts using a desktop application, convert these into jpg and png images and then simply add the files and an image to your pages.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to create interactive bars and graphs in WordPress with no coding skills required, the easiest way to do this is to use a plugin.

Fortunately, there is a great plugin for WordPress that is simple to install, easy-to-use and allows you to not only create appealing and mobile-responsive charts and graphs, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with dynamic data.

Visualizer

Visualizer URL

You can install the plugin in your WordPress dashboard (explained a little further below), or download the WP Visualizer plugin the WordPress free plugin repository using the link below:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Visualizer Plugin Description

Visualizer is a simple, easy to use and powerful WordPress plugin that allows you to create, manage and insert appealing graphs and charts into your WordPress posts and pages with 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 extra plugins are required.

Visualizer also provides 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 flexible and customizable, 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. Several 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 web visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile web browsers without requiring the installation of any extra plugins.

Plugin Installation

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

In the Add Plugins page type in “visualizer” into the search field and hit enter …

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

Click OK to proceed …

Activate the plugin after installing it …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins page …

After your plugin has been activated, click on Library …

You can get to the plugin’s ‘library’ screen by choosing Media > Visualizer Library from the main menu …

This brings up the plugin’s Visualizer Library settings …

When you first install the plugin, the library will contain no charts.

The next step is to add the charts and graphs to your library that you will want to insert into your content.

How To Configure Visualizer

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

You will see all the different types of graphs and charts available.

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

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

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

When creating your CSV data file, make sure that:

• Your first row contains your column headings.
• The second row contains the series type (e.g. number, datetime, etc.)

The screenshot below shows how to format your data as per the requirements above …

If you are unsure about how to format your CSV file, just use the sample that comes with the plugin.

Next, select your 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 computer select ‘From Computer‘ …

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

The plugin imports your data and displays it using the graph/chart type you have previously chosen …

Upload CSV File From The Web

For a tutorial that shows you how to create, save and publish data to a Visualizer chart or graph using Google Spreadsheet, see the article below:

• How To Populate Data Using Google Spreadsheet

After importing your data, make sure that all of the 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 you have selected, the plugin displays various customization settings and options …

The plugin gives you complete control over your chart or graph, and updates your display in real time …

For example, the pie chart offers various configurable options, such as:

• 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 how your graph or chart appears, click on the ‘Create Chart’ button …

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

Note that each element is given a unique ID displayed as a shortcode. As you will see very soon, this lets you insert charts and graphs into your WordPress content quickly and easily …

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

After adding a new item to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit its details, clone it, or trash it …

Visualizer Usage

Once you’ve created a graph or chart and added it to the Library, adding it to a page or post is really very simple.

First, create a new post or page (or open an existing one) …

Next, place your mouse cursor where you want to insert your visual element into your content and click on Add Media …

Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …

Select the element to be inserted into your content and click on the “insert” icon …

This adds a shortcode into your content …

After you have added the element, click on Publish to publish (or update) your page or post …

After updating the post/page, click ‘View post’ to see the results …

Your page or post displays the chart or graph in your content …

As mentioned previously, Visualizer also displays responsive charts for mobile viewers …

As you can see, WordPress Visualizer allows you to insert and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can change your data and your changes will automatically be reflected wherever you have inserted your charts, graphs, comparison bars , etc. in your website. This makes adding dynamic graph information in WordPress really efficient.

The plugin developers have created a number of step-by-step tutorials you can refer to for ways to edit, customize and use the Visualizer plugin for WordPress.

For tutorials on editing, copying, deleting and adding data to your charts, refer to the website below:

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

Congratulations! Now you know how to add great-looking and mobile-responsive bar charts and graphs to your WordPress posts.

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