How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

You’ve heard the saying “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This is certainly true when you’re presenting or explaining data.

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

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

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

If you want to learn how to present dynamic visual content on your WordPress site using charts and graphs, this step-by-step tutorial will show you how to create beautiful and updateable charts to your WordPress pages that:

• Your web visitors can interact with
• Lets you upload data from your hard drive or a web-based data source
• Will dynamically resize for mobile users

If you plan to display visual data like bar charts, comparison data or trending graphs containing static information (e.g. historical data), an easier option is to create your charts or graphs using an image editing application, convert these into images and then simply add the images to your post or page.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

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

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

Visualizer – WordPress Plugin

Visualizer URL

You can install the plugin inside your WP dashboard (see further down the page), or access and download Visualizer here:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Visualizer Description

WP Visualizer is a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that lets you create, manage and insert great-looking and mobile-responsive graphs 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 are needed.

WordPress Visualizer also comes with a variety of charts that are optimized to address 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 web design. Several 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 blog or site visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile devices without having to install any extra plugins.

Plugin Installation

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

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

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

Click OK to proceed …

Activate the plugin after successfully installing it …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins section …

After the plugin has been activated, click on Library …

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

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

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

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

How To Configure The Visualizer Plugin

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

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

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

Your selected graph/chart type will pop up in a lightbox.

The next step is to upload a CSV file with all the data you want to populate your chart or graph with …

When creating your CSV data file, make sure that:

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

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

If you are unsure about how to format your CSV file, simply download the sample spreadsheet that comes with the plugin.

Once you have done this, select your 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‘ …

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

The plugin imports the data from the CSV file and displays 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, see the article below:

• 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 containing the correct data), and click ‘Next‘ …

Depending on the chart or graph type you’ve selected, the plugin displays 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, such as:

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

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

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

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

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

Visualizer Usage

After creating a new chart or graph and adding it to the Visualizer Library, it’s really very simple 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 want to insert your visual element into your content and click on Add Media …

Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …

Find 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 …

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

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

The visual element will show in the content …

As mentioned earlier, Visualizer also displays responsive graphs and charts for viewing on mobile devices …

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 throughout your website. This makes working with interactive chart data in WordPress very efficient.

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

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

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

Congratulations! Now you know how to create great-looking and dynamic charts and graphs in WordPress.

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