How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

No doubt you’re familiar with the adage “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This certainly applies when you are presenting or explaining complex information.

Using graphs and charts is great for making statistical data and information a lot easier to digest.

You can present information with tables, but if you want your audience to try and make sense of complex data with numbers, percentages and comparisons more easily, then graphs and charts allow you to present the information in an intelligent and meaningful manner that can be quickly and easily understood.

Charts and graphs help you present complex data so people can more easily interpret it!

Need to add charts or graphs to WordPress? This tutorial shows you how to use WordPress Visualizer – a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that lets you create, manage and embed great-looking charts into your WordPress posts and pages in a few mouse clicks that:

• Your site visitors can interact with
• Lets you upload chart or graph data from your computer or an online source of data
• Is fully responsive for mobile browsers

If you plan to display visual data like bar charts, comparison bars or trending graphs which contain information that is not going to change (e.g. historical data), an easier way to add this information is to create your graphs or charts using a desktop application, convert these into images and then simply add the image to your post or page.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to easily add dynamic bar charts and pie charts to your WordPress content with no coding skills required, the easiest way to do this is to use a plugin.

Fortunately, there is a free WordPress plugin that is simple to install, easy-to-use and allows you to not only create stunning and dynamic charts and graphs, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with updateable data.

Visualizer – WordPress Plugin

Visualizer Plugin URL

You can install the plugin in your WordPress dashboard (explained further below), or download the WordPress Visualizer plugin from the link below:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Visualizer Plugin Description

WordPress Visualizer is a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that allows you to create, manage and embed attractive and dynamic charts into your WordPress posts and pages in just a few simple steps.

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 components are required.

The plugin also contains a variety of built-in that are optimized to address your data visualization needs, including:

• Line chart
• Area chart
• Bar chart
• Column chart
• Pie chart
• Geo chart
• Gauge chart
• Candlestick chart
• Scatter chart

WordPress Visualizer is also 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. A number of options are available for each chart that allow you to further customize their look.

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 any additional plugins.

Plugin Installation

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

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

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

Click OK to proceed …

Activate the plugin …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins section …

After your plugin has been activated, click on Library …

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

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

When you first install the plugin, the library contains no charts.

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

Plugin Configuration

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

A visual gallery displaying all of the different types of 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 graph/chart type will open up in a lightbox.

The next step is to upload a CSV file that contains your data …

When creating your CSV data file, ensure that:

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

The screenshot below shows how to format your data as explained above …

If you are not sure how to format your CSV file, simply download the sample provided with the plugin.

Once you have completed this step, 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 and data from your computer select ‘From Computer‘ …

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

The plugin will now import your data from the CSV file and display it using the graph/chart type you have previously chosen …

Upload CSV File From The Web

For a step-by-step tutorial that explains 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, 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 selected, the plugin displays a number of customization options and settings …

The WordPress Visualizer plugin gives you total control of your information, and updates your display in real time …

For example, the pie chart offers many 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 are satisfied with the look of your graph or chart, click on the ‘Create Chart’ button …

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

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

Charts and graphs added to the Visualizer Library can be accessed by their type …

After an element has been added to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit it, duplicate it, or delete it …

Visualizer Usage

After you’ve created a new graph or chart and added it to the Library, adding it to your content is really 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 the ‘Add Media‘ button …

Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …

Find the element to be added to your content and click on the “insert” icon …

This will add a shortcode for the element into your content …

Once you have finished adding your element, click on Publish to publish (or update) your page or post …

After updating your page, click ‘View post’ to see the end result …

You will see your chart in the location you specified …

As mentioned earlier, the plugin also displays responsive graphs and charts for mobile screens …

As you can see, the Visualizer plugin allows you to add and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can update your data and your changes will automatically be reflected throughout your site. This makes working with interactive chart information in WordPress very efficient.

The plugin developers have created a number of tutorials you can use to learn how to edit, customize and use Visualizer.

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

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

Congratulations! Now you know how to insert eye-catching and interactive pie charts and graphs into WordPress.

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