How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

You’ve no doubt heard the old saying “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This is certainly true when you are presenting or explaining data.

Using charts and graphs is useful for making statistical data and information more easily digestible.

You can use tables to present data, but if you want people to try and make sense of complex information with numbers, percentages or comparisons easily, then charts and graphs let you present your information in a meaningful and intelligent manner that can be quickly understood.

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

If you want to display dynamic visual content on your WordPress site like graphs and charts, this tutorial will show you how to create eye-catching and updateable charts and graphs to your pages that:

• Your site visitors can interact with
• Lets you upload data from your hard drive or a web-based data source
• Is dynamically responsive for mobile viewing

If you plan to display visual data like bar charts, comparison graphs or trending graphs which contain information that is not going to change (e.g. historical data), a simple method you can use to present the data is to create the charts or graphs using a desktop application, convert these into jpg or png files and then simply insert the image files into your site content.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

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

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

WP Plugin: Visualizer

Plugin URL

You can install the plugin in your WordPress dashboard (we show you how to do this a little further below), or download the WordPress Visualizer plugin here:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Visualizer Plugin Description

The Visualizer plugin is a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that allows you to create, manage and insert appealing and interactive graphs and charts into your WordPress posts and pages with 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 extra plugins or add-ons are needed.

WordPress Visualizer also provides a variety of built-in optimized for all 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 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 visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile browsers without having to install extra software.

How To Install The Plugin

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

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

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

Click OK to go ahead …

Activate the plugin after installation is successful …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins page …

After the plugin has been activated, click on Library …

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

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

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

The next step is to add add charts and graphs to your library.

Plugin Configuration

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

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

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

The selected 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, make sure that:

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

The screenshot below shows how to format your data as required …

If you are not sure how to format your CSV file, just use the sample file supplied with the plugin.

Once you have completed this step, select your data source (‘From Computer’ or ‘From Web’) in the ‘Upload CSV File’ section.

Upload CSV File From Computer

To upload your CSV file and data from your computer select ‘From Computer‘ …

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

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

Upload CSV File From The Web

For a step-by-step 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 the data, make sure that all of the information is correct (if not, click on the ‘Back’ button and reupload a new data file with the correct 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 complete control over your chart or graph, 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 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 happy with how your graph or chart looks, click on the ‘Create Chart’ button …

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

Note that every element is given a unique ID displayed as a shortcode. As you will see in a moment, this lets you add graphs and charts to your content very easily …

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

After adding a chart or graph to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit it, clone it, or trash it …

Visualizer Plugin Usage

After creating a new element and adding it to the Visualizer Library, adding it to a post or page 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 the content and click on Add Media …

Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …

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

This adds a shortcode into your content …

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

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

Your chart or graph will appear in where you placed the shortcode …

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

As you can see, the Visualizer plugin 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 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 adding dynamic chart information in WordPress.

The developers of this plugin have created a series of step-by-step tutorials you can refer to 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 website below:

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

Congratulations! Now you know how to easily add beautiful and mobile-responsive pie charts and graphs to WordPress with WP Visualizer plugin.

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