How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress
No doubt you’re familiar with the old adage “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This certainly applies when you are trying to present or explain data.
Using graphs and charts can help to make statistical data and information more easily digestible.
You can present data with tables, but if you want people to try and make sense of complex data with figures, trends or comparisons easily, then charts and graphs let you present the data in a meaningful and intelligent way that can be easily processed.
Charts and graphs help you explain complex information so people can more easily understand it!
Need to add charts or graphs to WordPress? This tutorial shows you how to use WordPress Visualizer – an easy-to-use and powerful WordPress plugin that allows you to create, manage and embed mobile-responsive graphs into your WordPress posts and pages in a few mouse clicks that:
- Your visitors can engage with
- Allows you to upload chart or graph data from your hard drive or a web-based data source
- Will dynamically resize for viewing on mobile devices
If you are displaying visual data like pie charts, comparison graphs or trending graphs containing information that is not going to change (e.g. historical data), a simple method you can use is to create the charts or graphs using an image editing application, convert these into .jpg and .png files and then simply add your image files to your posts.
Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins
If you want to easily create dynamic bars and pie graphs in your WordPress pages with no coding skills required, the easiest way to do this is to use a plugin.
Fortunately, there is a great free plugin for WordPress that is simple to install, easy-to-use and allows you to not only create beautiful and interactive graphs and charts, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with dynamic content.
WP Plugin: Visualizer
Visualizer URL
You can install the plugin from your WP dashboard (explained further below), or access and download Visualizer the WP free plugin repository using the link below:
http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer
Visualizer Description
Visualizer is a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that lets you create, manage and insert appealing and interactive charts and graphs into your WordPress posts and pages with just a few mouse clicks.
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.
The plugin also contains a variety of built-in 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 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 further 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 web browsers without having to install any additional software.
How To Install The Visualizer Plugin
From 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 section and click the “Install Now” button …
Click OK to go ahead …
Activate the plugin after successfully installing it …
You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins page …
Once the plugin has been activated, click on Library …
You can also get to the plugin’s ‘library’ screen by choosing Media > Visualizer Library from your main menu …
This brings up the plugin’s Visualizer Library options …
When you first install the plugin, this section will be empty.
Your next step is to add add charts and graphs to your plugin library.
How To Configure Visualizer
To add a new graph or chart to the plugin’s library, click on ‘Add New’ …
A visual gallery displaying all of the different kinds 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 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:
- Your first row includes the column headings.
- Your second row includes the series type (e.g. string, timeofday, etc.)
The screenshot below shows how to format your data as per the requirements above …
If you are unsure about how to format your CSV file, simply use the sample CSV file provided 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 the CSV file and data from your computer select ‘From Computer‘ …
Locate and select your data file and then click on ‘Open‘ …
The plugin will import your data and display it using the graph/chart type selected …
Upload CSV File From The Web
For a step-by-step tutorial that explains how to create, save and publish data to a Visualizer chart or graph using Google Spreadsheet, go here:
After importing your data, make sure that all of the information is correct (if not, click on the ‘Back’ button and reupload a new data file with the correct data), and click ‘Next‘ …
Depending on the chart or graph type you’ve picked, the plugin will display various customization settings …
Visualizer gives you complete control of your chart or graph, and updates your display in real time …
For example, the pie chart offers various 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 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 satisfied with the way your graph or chart is looking, click on the ‘Create Chart’ button …
Your graph or chart will now be added to your Visualizer ‘Library’ …
Note that new visual elements are given a unique ID displayed in a shortcode. As you will see in just a moment, this allows you to easily insert graphs and charts into your content …
Graphs and charts added to the Visualizer Library can easily be accessed by type …
After adding a new element to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit its details, clone it, or trash it …
Visualizer Usage
After creating a new element and adding it to the Visualizer Library, adding it to pages or posts is really 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 the ‘Add Media‘ button …
Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …
Find the chart or graph to be inserted into your content and click on the “insert” icon …
This will place a shortcode into your content …
After you have finished adding your item, click on Publish to publish (or update) your page or post …
Once your post has been updated, click ‘View post’ to see it …
Your graph will show up in the content …
As mentioned previously, Visualizer also displays responsive elements for mobile devices …
As you can see, 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 easy.
The plugin developers have created a series of tutorials you can refer to for ways to edit, customize and use WordPress Visualizer.
For tutorials on editing, copying, deleting and adding data to your charts, refer to the website below:
Congratulations! Now you know how to easily add appealing and dynamic bar charts and graphs to WordPress with WP Visualizer plugin.
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