How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

You’re probably familiar with the saying “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This certainly applies when you are trying to present and explain data.

Graphs and charts can help to make statistical data and information 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 relationships more easily, then graphs and charts allow you to present the information in an intelligent and meaningful way that can be easily understood.

Graphs and charts help you present complex information so people can more easily interpret it!

Need to add charts and graphs to WordPress? This tutorial shows you how to use WordPress Visualizer – a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that allows you to create, manage and embed appealing charts and graphs into your WordPress posts and pages with just a few mouse clicks that:

• Your visitors can interact with
• Lets you upload graph or chart data from your computer or an online source of data
• Will resize dynamically for mobile users

If you are displaying visual data like bar charts, comparison bars or trending graphs that contain static information (e.g. historical data), an easier option is to create your charts or graphs using an image editing application, convert these into .jpg and .png images and then simply add your files and an image to your posts or pages.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to add dynamic bar charts and graphs to your 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 appealing and dynamic charts and graphs, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with updatable content.

Visualizer

Visualizer URL

You can install the plugin inside your WP dashboard (see further below), or download WordPress Visualizer from the link below:

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 insert appealing graphs and charts into your WordPress posts and pages with just a few simple steps.

WordPress 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 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

Visualizer is flexible and customizable, allowing you to use Google Chart Tools with their default setting, or configure an extensive set of options to match the look and feel of your website. A number of options are available for each chart that allow you to fully 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 site visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile device browsers without having to install any extra plugins.

Plugin Installation

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

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

Locate the item in the search results section and click the “Install Now” button …

Click OK to proceed …

Activate the plugin …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins area …

After your 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.

Your next step is to add the charts and graphs to your library that you will want to display in your content.

Plugin Configuration

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

A page will appear on your browser with all of the different kinds of charts available.

Select the graph or chart type 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 containing your data …

When creating your CSV data file, make sure that:

• The first row contains your column headings.
• Your second row contains the series type (e.g. number, datetime, 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 use the sample that comes with the plugin.

Once you have created your CSV file, select the 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 hard drive select ‘From Computer‘ …

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

The plugin will import your data and display 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, go here:

• 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 with the correct data), and then click ‘Next‘ …

Depending on the chart or graph type you’ve selected, the plugin will display various customization options …

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

For example, the pie chart offers various 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 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 way your chart or graph is looking, click Create Chart …

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

Note that each new element is given a unique ID displayed in a shortcode. As you will see in just a moment, this lets you add graphs and charts to your pages easily and quickly …

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

After a chart or graph has been added to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit its details, clone it, or delete it …

Plugin Usage

After creating a element and adding it to the Visualizer Library, adding it to a post 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‘ …

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

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

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

After updating the post, click ‘View post’ to see it …

Your post or page will display the chart or graph in where you have added the shortcode …

As mentioned previously, Visualizer also displays responsive elements for mobile screens …

As you can see, the Visualizer plugin lets you insert and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can update your data and your changes will automatically be reflected wherever you have inserted your charts, graphs, comparison bars , etc. in your website. This makes working with dynamic graph information in WordPress very easy.

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

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

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

Congratulations! Now you know how to easily insert interactive bar charts and graphs into WordPress.

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