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’re presenting and explaining complex data.

Using charts and graphs is great for breaking up content that contains a disproportionate amount of text, and making statistical data and information much simpler to understand.

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

Charts and graphs help you explain complex data so people can more easily interpret it!

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

• Your web visitors can engage with
• Allows you to upload data from your computer or an online data source
• Resizes dynamically for mobile screens

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

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to easily add interactive bar charts and graphs to WordPress 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 stunning and mobile-responsive charts and graphs, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with updatable content.

Visualizer Plugin For WordPress

Visualizer URL

You can install the plugin in your WP dashboard (see a little further down the page), or access and download the Visualizer plugin from the link below:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Visualizer Description

WordPress Visualizer is an easy-to-use and powerful plugin that lets you create, manage and insert eye-catching and dynamic graphs into your WordPress posts and pages with a few simple steps.

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 additional addons are required.

Visualizer also comes with 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

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 the look and feel of your website. A number of 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 devices without requiring the installation of extra software.

How To Install The Plugin

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

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

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

Click OK to proceed …

Activate the plugin after installing it …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins page …

Once your plugin has been activated, click on Library …

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

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

After installing the plugin, the library contains no charts.

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

How To Configure The Plugin

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

You will see all of the built-in types of graphs available.

Select the type of chart or graph 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 containing your data …

When creating your CSV data file, make sure that:

• The first row contains the column headings.
• Your second row includes the series type (e.g. number, date, etc.)

The screenshot below shows how to format your data …

If you are unsure about how to format your data CSV, just use the sample spreadsheet supplied with the plugin.

Once you have completed this step, 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 from your hard drive select ‘From Computer‘ …

Locate and select your data file and then click on ‘Open‘ …

The plugin will now import the data from the CSV file and display it using the graph/chart type you have chosen …

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, go here:

• 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 containing the right data), and click ‘Next‘ …

Depending on the chart or graph type you’ve picked, the plugin displays a range of customization options …

Visualizer gives you total control of your information, and updates your display in real time …

For example, the pie chart offers many 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 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 chart or graph will now be added to the ‘Visualizer Library’ section …

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

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

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

Plugin Usage

After creating a graph or chart and adding it to the Library, adding it to posts and pages is really 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 the ‘Add Media‘ button …

Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …

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

This will place a shortcode into your content …

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

After the page/post has been updated, click ‘View post’ to see the end result …

Your graph will show in where you’ve inserted the shortcode …

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

As you can see, the Visualizer plugin lets you add and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can edit your data and your changes will automatically be reflected wherever you have inserted your charts, graphs, comparison bars , etc. in your site. This makes working with dynamic graph data in WordPress really easy.

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

For 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 add stunning and mobile-responsive pie charts and graphs to your WordPress pages and posts with WordPress Visualizer plugin.

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