How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

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

Using charts and graphs is great for breaking up content containing too much text, and making statistical data and information much easier to grasp.

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

Graphs and charts help present complex data so your audience can more easily interpret it!

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

• Your site visitors can engage with
• Allows you to add data from your hard drive or a web-based data source
• Resizes dynamically for viewing on mobile devices

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

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

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

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

Visualizer

Plugin URL

You can install the plugin from your WordPress dashboard (see further down the page), or download the Visualizer plugin from the link below:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Visualizer Plugin Description

WP Visualizer is an easy-to-use and powerful tool that lets you create, manage and embed colorful graphs into your WordPress posts and pages with a few mouse clicks.

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 additional components are needed.

Visualizer also provides 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 web design. Various options are available for each chart that let you 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 web visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile devices without having to install extra software.

How To Install WordPress Visualizer

Inside your WP admin area, select Plugins > Add New from the main sidebar menu …

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

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

Click OK to go ahead …

Activate the plugin after installing it …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins section …

Once the plugin has been activated, click on Library …

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

This brings up the plugin’s Visualizer Library screen …

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

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

Visualizer Configuration

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

An image gallery displaying all of the different types of graphs available will load 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 with your data …

When creating your CSV data file, make sure that:

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

The screenshot below shows how to format your data …

If you are not sure how to format your CSV file, simply download the sample CSV file supplied 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 the CSV file and data from your computer select ‘From Computer‘ …

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

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

Upload CSV File From The Web

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

Depending on the chart or graph type you’ve chosen, the plugin will display various customization settings …

The WordPress Visualizer plugin gives you complete 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 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 way your chart or graph appears, click on the ‘Create Chart’ button …

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

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

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

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

Visualizer Plugin Usage

After you’ve created a new graph or chart and added it to Visualizer, it’s really simple to add it to 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‘ …

Find the element you want to insert into your content and click the “insert” icon …

This will place a shortcode into your content …

After you have finished adding your element, click on Publish to publish (or update) your content …

After publishing the page/post, click ‘View post’ to see the result …

Your page or post displays your graph in the content …

As mentioned previously, the plugin also displays responsive visual elements for mobile devices …

As you can see, WordPress Visualizer allows you to insert and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can modify your data and your changes will automatically be reflected throughout your website. This is very convenient if you’re working with interactive graph data in WordPress.

The developers of this plugin have created a series of tutorials you can use to learn how to edit, customize and use the plugin.

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

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

Congratulations! Now you know how to insert dynamic pie charts and graphs into WordPress with WordPress Visualizer plugin.

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