How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

You’re probably familiar with the saying “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This is certainly true when you’re trying to present or explain complex information.

Using graphs and charts is great for making data a whole lot easier to grasp.

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

Charts and graphs help present complex information so your audience can more easily interpret it!

Need to add charts and graphs to your WordPress posts and pages? This tutorial shows you how to use WordPress Visualizer – an easy-to-use and powerful plugin for WordPress that lets you create, manage and insert interactive charts into your WordPress posts and pages that:

• Your visitors can interact with
• Allows you to add graph or chart data from your hard drive or a web-based data source
• Dynamically resizes for mobile screens

If you are displaying visual data like bar charts, comparison charts or trending graphs containing static information (e.g. historical data), an easier way to display the data is to create the charts or graphs using a desktop application, convert these into jpg or png images and then simply insert your images into your posts.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to insert dynamic bars and pie graphs into 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 sites that is simple to install, easy-to-use and allows you to not only create beautiful and mobile-responsive graphs and charts, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with updateable data.

WP Plugin: Visualizer

Plugin URL

You can install the plugin in your WordPress dashboard (we will show you how to do this further down the page), or access and download the WordPress Visualizer plugin here:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Visualizer Description

WP Visualizer is a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that allows you to create, manage and insert colorful and mobile-responsive graphs into your WordPress posts and pages in just 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 required.

WordPress Visualizer also provides a variety of charts 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

WordPress 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 the look and feel of your website. A number of options are available for each chart that allow you to further customize their look and feel.

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 additional software.

How To Install Visualizer

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

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

Locate the plugin in the search results area and click the “Install Now” button …

Click OK to go ahead …

Activate the plugin after installation is successful …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins area …

After your plugin has been activated, click on Library …

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

This brings up the plugin’s Visualizer Library section …

After installing the plugin, this section will be empty.

Your next step is to add the charts and graphs to your library that you will want to publish to your pages and posts.

Visualizer Plugin Configuration

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

You will see all of the default kinds of graphs 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 lightbox.

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

When creating your CSV data file, ensure that:

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

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

If you are not sure how to format your data CSV, just download the sample spreadsheet provided with the plugin.

Next, select your data source (‘From Computer’ or ‘From Web’) in the ‘Upload CSV File’ section.

Upload CSV File From Computer

To upload a CSV file from your computer select ‘From Computer‘ …

Use the browser to 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 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, go here:

• How To Populate Data Using Google Spreadsheet

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

Depending on the chart or graph type you have picked, the plugin displays a number of customization 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, including:

• 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 graph or chart, click on the ‘Create Chart’ button …

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

Note that new elements are 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 WordPress content very quickly …

Charts and graphs 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 it, duplicate it, or trash it …

Visualizer Usage

Once you have created a chart or graph and added it to the Library, it’s very simple to insert it into a page or post.

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 the content and click on Add Media …

Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …

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

This inserts a shortcode into your content …

After you have added the visual element, click on Publish to publish (or update) your page or post …

Once your post/page has been published, click ‘View post’ to see the results …

Your visual element will display in where you placed the shortcode …

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

As you can see, the Visualizer plugin allows you to add and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can update your data and the changes will automatically be reflected throughout your website. This is one of the great benefits of using the Visualizer plugin if you’re managing dynamic graph data in WordPress.

The plugin developers have created a series of step-by-step tutorials you can use to learn how to edit, customize and use the Visualizer plugin for WordPress.

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

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

Congratulations! Now you know how to insert beautiful bar charts and graphs into WordPress with WP Visualizer plugin.

***

***