How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

You’ve heard the saying “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This certainly applies when you are presenting and explaining data.

Using charts and graphs is great for making data easier to digest.

You can use tables to present data, but if you want people to try and make sense of complex information with figures, trends or relationships easily, then graphs and charts are perfect for helping them interpret the information.

Charts and graphs help explain complex information so your audience can more easily understand it!

Need to add charts and graphs to your WordPress posts and pages? This step-by-step tutorial shows you how to use WordPress Visualizer – an easy-to-use and powerful WP plugin that allows you to create, manage and embed mobile-responsive charts into your WordPress posts and pages that:

• Your site visitors can engage with
• Lets you add graph or chart data from your hard drive or an online data source
• Dynamically resizes for mobile screens

If you plan to display visual data like pie charts, comparison charts or trending graphs that contain static information (e.g. historical data), an easier way to display your information is to create the charts or graphs using an image editing application, convert these into images and then simply add the image to your web content.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

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

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

Visualizer

Visualizer URL

You can install the plugin in your WordPress dashboard (explained a little further below), or download the WP Visualizer plugin here:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Plugin Description

The WordPress Visualizer plugin is a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that allows you to create, manage and embed eye-catching and mobile-responsive graphs into your WordPress posts and pages with 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 extra components are needed.

The plugin also contains 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

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. Several options are available for each chart that let you 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 blog or site visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile web browsers without requiring the installation of additional plugins.

How To Install The Visualizer Plugin

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

In the Add Plugins screen type in search for “visualizer” and click enter …

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

Click OK to proceed …

Activate the plugin …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins page …

After your plugin has been activated, click on Library …

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

This brings up the plugin’s Visualizer Library page …

After installing the plugin, this section will be empty.

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

Plugin Configuration

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

You will see all of the different types of charts available.

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

Your graph/chart type will open up in a lightbox.

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

When creating your CSV data file, ensure that:

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

The screenshot below shows how to format your data …

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

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

The plugin imports your data and displays it using the graph/chart type you have previously 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 new data file containing the right data), and click ‘Next‘ …

Depending on the chart or graph type selected, the plugin displays various customization settings and options …

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

Note that new elements are given a unique ID displayed as a shortcode. As you will see very soon, this lets you insert charts and graphs into your posts and pages easily and quickly …

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

After a new element has been added to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit its details, duplicate it, or trash it …

Plugin Usage

After creating a new graph or chart and adding it to the Visualizer Library, adding it to a post is very 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 Add Media …

Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …

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

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

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

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

You will see your chart or graph in the location where you placed the shortcode …

As mentioned earlier, Visualizer also displays responsive graphs for mobile screens …

As you can see, the Visualizer plugin lets you add and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can modify your data and your changes will automatically be reflected throughout your site. This makes working with interactive graph information in WordPress very efficient.

The developers of this plugin have created a number of step-by-step tutorials you can refer to for ways to edit, customize and use the Visualizer plugin for WordPress.

For 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 insert great-looking and dynamic bar charts and graphs into WordPress with WP Visualizer plugin.

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