How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

You’ve no doubt heard the adage “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This certainly applies when you are presenting and explaining data.

Using charts and graphs is great for breaking up long passage of technical information, and making statistical data and information a lot simpler to digest.

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

Charts and graphs help present complex data so your audience can more easily understand it!

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

• Your visitors can interact with
• Lets you upload data from your computer or an online source of data
• Is responsive for mobile devices

If you are displaying visual data like pie charts, comparison data or trending graphs containing information that is not going to change (e.g. historical data), a simple method you can use to display this data is to create the graphs or charts using an image editing application, convert these into .jpg or .png images and then simply add the files and an image to your posts.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to easily create interactive bars and graphs in 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 great free plugin for WordPress users that is simple to install, easy-to-use and allows you to not only create appealing and mobile-responsive charts and graphs, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with updatable data.

Visualizer Plugin For WordPress

Visualizer Plugin URL

You can install the plugin from your WP dashboard (explained further down the page), or access and download Visualizer the WordPress free plugin directory using the link below:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Plugin Description

WP Visualizer is an easy-to-use and powerful WordPress plugin that lets you create, manage and embed interactive graphs into your WordPress posts and pages in just a few mouse clicks.

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 or add-ons are required.

The plugin also contains a variety of built-in optimized for 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. 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 web visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile web browsers without requiring the installation of additional software.

How To Install WordPress Visualizer

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

In the Add Plugins screen type “visualizer” into the search field and hit enter …

Locate the plugin in the search results section and click Install Now …

Click OK to continue …

Activate the plugin …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins area …

After the plugin has been activated, click on Library …

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

This brings up the plugin’s Visualizer Library page …

When you first install the plugin, the library contains no charts.

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

Visualizer Plugin Configuration

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

A visual gallery displaying all of the built-in kinds of graphs and charts available will load on your screen.

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

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

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

When creating your CSV data file, make sure that:

• The first row includes the column headings.
• The second row contains the series type (e.g. boolean, 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 CSV file, simply download the sample CSV file that comes with the plugin.

Next, 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 from your hard drive select ‘From Computer‘ …

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

The plugin will now import your data and display it using the graph/chart type you have selected …

Upload CSV File From The Web

For a tutorial that shows you 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 your 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 have chosen, the plugin displays a range of customization settings and options …

The WordPress Visualizer plugin 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 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 are happy with the look of your graph or chart, click Create Chart …

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

Note that new elements are given a unique ID displayed as a shortcode. As you will see in just a moment, this allows you to add graphs and charts to your pages very quickly …

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

After adding a new element to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit it, clone it, or delete it …

Visualizer Plugin Usage

Once you’ve created a chart or graph and added it to the Library, it’s simple to add it to posts or pages.

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 the content and click on the ‘Add Media‘ button …

Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …

Find the chart or graph you want to add to your content and click on the “insert” icon …

This adds a shortcode for the element into your content …

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

After your page/post has been published, click ‘View post’ to see it …

The chart will appear in the location you specified …

As mentioned earlier, Visualizer also displays responsive visual elements for viewing on mobile devices …

As you can see, Visualizer lets you insert and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can update your data and the changes will automatically be reflected wherever you have inserted your charts, graphs, comparison bars , etc. in your website. This is a real time-saving feature of the plugin if you’re adding dynamic chart data in WordPress.

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

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

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

Congratulations! Now you know how to create appealing and dynamic charts and graphs in WordPress with WP Visualizer plugin.

***

***