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’re presenting or explaining complex information.

Charts and graphs help to break up content that contains a disproportionate amount of text, and make technical or statistical data more easily digestible.

You can use tables to present data, but if you want your audience to try and make sense of complex information with numbers, trends and relationships easily, then graphs and charts let you present the information in a meaningful and intelligent manner that can be quickly processed.

Graphs and charts help explain complex data so your audience can more easily understand it!

If you want to display dynamic visual content on your WordPress site using charts and graphs, this tutorial will show you how to create appealing and updatable charts and graphs to your WordPress posts that:

• Your visitors can engage with
• Allows you to upload data from your computer or a web-based source of data
• Is dynamically responsive for mobile viewing

If you are displaying 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 this information is to create the graphs or charts using a desktop application, convert these into .jpg or .png images and then simply insert the image files into your posts or pages.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

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

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

Visualizer Plugin For WordPress

Visualizer Plugin URL

You can install the plugin from your WP dashboard (we explain how to do this a little further down the page), or access and download WordPress Visualizer from the link below:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Plugin Description

WordPress Visualizer is an easy-to-use and powerful tool that allows you to create, manage and insert eye-catching and interactive charts and graphs into your WordPress posts and pages in just a few simple steps.

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 or add-ons are required.

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

The plugin 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. Several options are available for each chart that let you 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 device browsers without requiring the installation of additional software.

Plugin Installation

Inside your WordPress dashboard, select Plugins > Add New from the main sidebar menu …

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

Locate the plugin in the search results screen and click Install Now …

Click OK to go ahead …

Activate the plugin after successfully 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 page …

After installing the plugin, the library contains no charts.

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

Visualizer Configuration

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

You will be presented with all the kinds of graphs and charts available.

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

Your selected graph/chart type will open up in a new window.

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

When creating your CSV data file, ensure that:

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

The screenshot below shows how to format your data correctly …

If you are unsure about how to format your data CSV, simply use the sample spreadsheet 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 a CSV file and data from your computer select ‘From Computer‘ …

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

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

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, go here:

• How To Populate Data Using Google Spreadsheet

After importing the data, check that all of your 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 chosen, the plugin will display various customization options and settings …

Visualizer gives you complete control of your information, and updates your display in real time …

For example, the pie chart offers many configurable options, including:

• 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 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 are satisfied with the look of your chart or graph, click on the ‘Create Chart’ button …

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

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

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

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

Visualizer Plugin Usage

Once you have created a new chart or graph and added it to the Visualizer Library, adding it to a page or post is quite 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‘ …

Find the graph or chart you want to insert into your content and click the “insert” icon …

This will add a shortcode into your content …

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

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

You will see the graph or chart in the location you specified …

As mentioned earlier, Visualizer also displays responsive elements for mobile browsers …

As you can see, WordPress Visualizer lets you 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 site. This makes managing dynamic chart information in WordPress very easy.

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

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

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

Congratulations! Now you know how to easily create stunning and dynamic pie charts and graphs in WordPress.

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