How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

You’re probably familiar with the saying “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This is certainly true when you’re presenting or explaining complex information.

Graphs and charts help to break up long chunks of text, and make technical or statistical data more easily digestible.

You can present data with tables, but if you want people to try and interpret complex data with figures, trends and comparisons quickly, then charts and graphs are perfect for helping them visualize the information.

Charts and graphs help you explain complex data so your audience can more easily understand it!

Need to add charts and graphs to your WordPress posts and pages? This step-by-step tutorial shows you how to use WP Visualizer – an easy-to-use and powerful plugin that lets you create, manage and embed appealing and interactive charts into your WordPress posts and pages that:

• Your web visitors can interact with
• Lets you add data from your computer or an online source of data
• Is responsive for viewing on mobile devices

If you plan to display visual data like pie charts, comparison data or trending graphs containing static information (e.g. historical data), a simple method you can use to present the information is to create your graphs or charts using an image editing application, convert these into jpg and png images and then simply insert your images into your web content.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to easily create dynamic bar charts and graphs in 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 colorful and dynamic charts and graphs, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with updatable information.

Visualizer Plugin For WordPress

Plugin URL

You can install the plugin from your WordPress dashboard (explained a little further below), or access and download WP Visualizer from the link below:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Plugin Description

WordPress Visualizer is a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that lets you create, manage and insert colorful graphs into your WordPress posts and pages in a few simple steps.

WordPress 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 addons are required.

The plugin also contains a variety of built-in 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 your site’s design. A number of options are available for each chart that allow you to customize their settings.

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 browsers without having to install additional software.

How To Install WordPress Visualizer

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

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

Locate Visualizer in the search results area and click Install Now …

Click OK to go ahead …

Activate the plugin …

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 the dashboard menu …

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

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

Your next step is to add add charts and graphs to the plugin library.

Plugin Configuration

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

A page will appear in your screen with all the types of 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 containing your data …

When creating your CSV data file, ensure that:

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

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

If you are unsure about how to format your data CSV, just refer to 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 a CSV file from your hard drive select ‘From Computer‘ …

Use the browser to locate and select your data file and then click on ‘Open‘ …

The plugin will import your data from the CSV file 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, make sure that all of your information is correct (if not, click on the ‘Back’ button and reupload a new data file with the right data), and then click ‘Next‘ …

Depending on the chart or graph type selected, the plugin will display a number of customization options and settings …

Visualizer gives you total control over your information, and updates your display in real time …

For example, the pie chart offers various 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’re satisfied with the way your chart or graph looks, click Create Chart …

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

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

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

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

Visualizer Plugin Usage

Once you’ve created a graph or chart and added it to the Visualizer Library, it’s easy to insert it into your 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 Add Media …

Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …

Select the graph or chart to be added to your content and click the “insert” icon …

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

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

Once your post has been published, click ‘View post’ to see the results …

You will see the element in the location you specified …

As mentioned previously, Visualizer also displays responsive graphs and charts for mobile users …

As you can see, Visualizer allows you to add 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 one of the great benefits of using the Visualizer plugin if you’re managing interactive chart data in WordPress.

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

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

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

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

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