How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

You’ve no doubt heard the old adage “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This certainly applies when you’re trying to present and explain complex information.

Using graphs and charts is great for making technical data more easily digestible.

You can use tables to present data, but if you want your audience to try and interpret complex data with figures, percentages or relationships more easily, then graphs and charts are perfect for helping them interpret the data.

Charts and graphs help you explain complex information so your audience can more easily understand it!

If you need to learn how to present dynamic visual content on your WordPress site using graphs and charts, this tutorial will show you exactly how to create great-looking and interactive graphs and charts to your WordPress posts that:

• Your site visitors can interact with
• Allows you to upload data from your computer or a web-based source of data
• Resizes dynamically for mobile devices

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

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to easily add interactive bars and pie charts to your WordPress posts with no coding skills required, the easiest way to do this is to use a plugin.

Fortunately, there is a great free WordPress plugin that is simple to install, easy-to-use and allows you to not only create appealing and mobile-responsive graphs and charts, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with updatable data.

Visualizer – WordPress Plugin

Visualizer URL

You can install the plugin inside your WordPress dashboard (explained a little further down the page), or access and download Visualizer here:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Plugin Description

WordPress Visualizer is an easy-to-use and powerful plugin for WordPress that lets you create, manage and insert appealing 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 additional add-ons are required.

Visualizer also comes with a variety of charts 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

Visualizer is a flexible and customizable plugin, allowing you to use Google Chart Tools with their default setting, or configure an extensive set of options to match your web design. 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 web visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile browsers without requiring the installation of extra software.

How To Install Visualizer

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

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

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

Click OK to proceed …

Activate the plugin after successfully installing it …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins section …

Once the plugin has been activated, click on Library …

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

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

After installing the plugin, this section will be empty.

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

Visualizer Configuration

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

You will see all of the built-in 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 new window.

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

When creating your CSV data file, make sure that:

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

The screenshot below shows how to format your data …

If you are not sure how to format your data CSV, simply download the sample CSV file supplied 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 your CSV file and data 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 step-by-step tutorial that explains 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 the information is correct (if not, click on the ‘Back’ button and reupload a new data file containing the right data), and click ‘Next‘ …

Depending on the chart or graph type you have chosen, the plugin displays a number of customization options …

The plugin gives you complete control of your chart or graph, and updates your display in real time …

For example, the pie chart offers many 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 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 …

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

Note that every new element is given a unique ID displayed as a shortcode. As you will see in a moment, this allows you to easily insert graphs and charts into your content …

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

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

Visualizer Plugin Usage

After you have created a new element and added it to the Visualizer Library, adding it to a page or post is very 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 Add Media …

Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …

Find the element to be inserted into your content and click the “insert” icon …

This adds a shortcode for the element into your content …

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

After updating your page/post, click ‘View post’ to see it …

You will see your graph in the content …

As mentioned earlier, Visualizer also displays responsive graphs for mobile devices …

As you can see, WordPress Visualizer lets you insert and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can change your data and the changes will automatically be reflected wherever you have inserted your charts, graphs, comparison bars , etc. in your site. This makes managing 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 WordPress Visualizer.

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

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

Congratulations! Now you know how to insert beautiful and dynamic charts and graphs into your WordPress posts with WP Visualizer.

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