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 is certainly true when you’re trying to present or explain data.

Using charts and graphs can help to make statistical data and information more easily digestible.

You can present data with tables, but if you want your audience to try and make sense of complex data with figures, percentages and relationships easily, then graphs and charts let you present the information in an intelligent and meaningful manner that can be easily processed.

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

If you want to present dynamic visual content on your WordPress site like charts and graphs, this step-by-step tutorial will show you how to create colourful and updatable charts to your posts and pages that:

• Your site visitors can interact with
• Allows you to add chart or graph data from your computer or an online data source
• Will resize dynamically for mobile devices

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

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to add interactive bars and pie charts to WordPress content 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 appealing and mobile-responsive charts and graphs, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with dynamic content.

Visualizer

Visualizer Plugin URL

You can install the plugin in your WP dashboard (we explain how to do this further down the page), or download the WP Visualizer plugin the WordPress plugin directory using the link below:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Visualizer Plugin Description

The Visualizer plugin is a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that lets you create, manage and embed appealing and interactive charts and graphs into your WordPress posts and pages with 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 add-ons are needed.

WordPress Visualizer also comes with a variety of charts that are optimized to address 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 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 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 extra plugins.

How To Install WordPress Visualizer

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

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

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

Click OK to continue …

Activate the plugin after successfully installing it …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins section …

After the plugin has been activated, click on Library …

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

This brings up the plugin’s Visualizer Library page …

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 display in your pages or posts.

How To Configure The Plugin

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

An image gallery displaying all of the different kinds of charts and graphs available will load on your screen.

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

The graph/chart type will pop 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 includes the column headings.
• Your second row contains the series type (e.g. boolean, timeofday, etc.)

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

If you are not sure how to format your CSV file, simply refer to the sample 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 the CSV file and data from your hard drive select ‘From Computer‘ …

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

The plugin will import the data and display it using the graph/chart type you have previously chosen …

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, check that all of the information is correct (if not, click on the ‘Back’ button and reupload a data file containing the right data), and then click ‘Next‘ …

Depending on the chart or graph type you’ve selected, the plugin displays various customization options and settings …

Visualizer gives you complete control of your information, 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 way your graph or chart looks, click Create Chart …

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

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

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

After an item has been added to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit its details, clone it, or delete it …

Plugin Usage

Once you’ve created a new chart or graph and added it to the Library, it’s easy to add it to a post or page.

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 on the “insert” icon …

This inserts a shortcode into your content …

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

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

Your element will appear in the location you specified …

As mentioned previously, the plugin also displays responsive elements for mobile viewing …

As you can see, 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 working with interactive chart information in WordPress very easy.

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

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

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

Congratulations! Now you know how to easily insert colorful and interactive charts and graphs into WordPress with WordPress Visualizer.

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