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’re trying to present or explain complex data.

Using charts and graphs is useful for breaking up long and difficult content, and making technical data more easily digestible.

You can use tables to present information, but if you want your audience to try and interpret complex data with figures, trends or comparisons easily, then charts and graphs are perfect for helping them visualize your data.

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

Need to add charts or graphs to WordPress? This tutorial shows you how to use WP Visualizer – a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that lets you create, manage and insert attractive and interactive graphs into your WordPress posts and pages that:

• Your web visitors can engage with
• Allows you to add chart or graph data from your hard drive or a web-based data source
• Will dynamically resize for mobile device browsing

If you are displaying visual data like pie charts, comparison data or trending graphs containing static information (e.g. historical data), a simple method you can use to present this data is to create the charts or graphs using a desktop application, convert these into .jpg or .png images and then simply add the images to your posts.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

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

Fortunately, there is a great plugin for WordPress users that is simple to install, easy-to-use and allows you to not only create eye-catching and mobile-responsive charts and graphs, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with updateable content.

Visualizer

Visualizer Plugin URL

You can install the plugin inside your WordPress dashboard (we will show you how to do this further down the page), or access and download the WordPress Visualizer plugin the WP free plugin repository using the link below:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Visualizer Description

The Visualizer plugin is 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 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 plugins are required.

WordPress Visualizer also comes with 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 the look and feel of your website. Various options are available for each chart that allow you to 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 site visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile device browsers without requiring the installation of any extra software.

How To Install The Visualizer Plugin

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

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

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

Click OK to go ahead …

Activate the plugin …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins area …

Once the plugin has been activated, click on Library …

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

This takes you to the plugin’s Visualizer Library section …

When you first install the plugin, the library will contain no charts.

Your next step is to add add charts and graphs to the library.

Visualizer Configuration

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

A page will load in your browser with all the different kinds of graphs and 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 the column headings.
• The second row contains the series type (e.g. string, timeofday, etc.)

The screenshot below shows how to format your data …

If you are unsure about how to format your CSV file, just refer to the sample CSV file supplied 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 a CSV file 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 selected …

Upload CSV File From The Web

For a tutorial that explains 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 data file containing the correct data), and then click ‘Next‘ …

Depending on the chart or graph type you’ve selected, the plugin will display a number of customization settings …

The plugin gives you full control over 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 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 look of your chart or graph, click on the ‘Create Chart’ button …

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

Note that every element is given a unique ID displayed as a shortcode. As you will see shortly, this lets you add charts and graphs to your WordPress pages quickly and easily …

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

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

Plugin Usage

After creating a element and adding it to Visualizer, adding it to a page 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‘ …

Select the element you want to insert into your content and click the “insert” icon …

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

After you have finished adding the element, click on Publish to publish (or update) your content …

Once the post has been updated, click ‘View post’ to see the end result …

Your page or post should display your visual element in your content …

As mentioned earlier, the plugin also displays responsive elements for mobile browsers …

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 site. This is a real time-saver if you’re working with dynamic chart data in WordPress.

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

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

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

Congratulations! Now you know how to easily insert appealing and mobile-responsive bar charts and graphs into your WordPress pages.

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