How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

You’ve heard the adage “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This certainly applies when you are trying to present or explain complex information.

Using graphs and charts is great for breaking up long passage of text, and making technical or statistical data more easily digestible.

You can present data using tables, but if you want people to try and interpret complex data with numbers, percentages or relationships easily, then charts and graphs are perfect for helping them understand the data.

Graphs and charts help present complex information so your audience can more easily understand it!

If you want to present information visually and dynamically on your WordPress site using graphs and charts, this tutorial will show you exactly how to create appealing and updatable charts and graphs to your WordPress posts and pages that:

• Your visitors can interact with
• Allows you to add chart or graph data from your hard drive or an online source of data
• Dynamically resizes for mobile screens

If you plan to display visual data like pie 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 display the data is to create the graphs or charts using an image editing application, convert these into jpg and png files and then simply add the images to your posts.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to add interactive bars 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 plugin for WordPress that is simple to install, easy-to-use and allows you to not only create stunning and interactive charts and graphs, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with updatable data.

Visualizer

Visualizer URL

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

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Plugin Description

WP Visualizer is an easy-to-use and powerful tool that lets you create, manage and insert beautiful and dynamic graphs and 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 plugins or add-ons are required.

The plugin also provides 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 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 web 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 visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile web browsers without having to install extra software.

Plugin Installation

From your WordPress dashboard, 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 item in the search results screen and click the “Install Now” button …

Click OK to proceed …

Activate the plugin after installing it …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins page …

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 main menu …

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

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 insert into your posts or pages.

How To Configure The Plugin

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

A gallery displaying all of the different kinds of charts available will load on your screen.

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

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

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

When creating your CSV data file, ensure that:

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

The screenshot below shows how to format your data …

If you are not sure how to format your CSV file, simply use the sample CSV file that comes 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 a CSV file and data from your hard drive select ‘From Computer‘ …

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

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

Upload CSV File From The Web

To learn 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 data file with the right data), and click ‘Next‘ …

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

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

For example, the pie chart offers various 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’re happy with the look of your chart or graph, click on the ‘Create Chart’ button …

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

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

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

After adding an item to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit it, clone it, or trash it …

Visualizer Plugin Usage

Once you have created a element and added it to Visualizer, adding it to posts or pages is really simple.

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 your content and click on the ‘Add Media‘ button …

Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …

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

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

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

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

Your post or page displays your graph or chart in where you have inserted the shortcode …

As mentioned previously, the plugin also displays responsive graphs and charts for mobile viewers …

As you can see, the Visualizer plugin lets you add and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can edit your data and the changes will automatically be reflected throughout your site. This is great if you’re adding dynamic graph data in WordPress.

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

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

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

Congratulations! Now you know how to insert appealing pie charts and graphs into your WordPress posts and pages with WordPress Visualizer.

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