How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

You’ve heard the old saying “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This certainly applies when you are trying to present and explain data.

Using charts and graphs is useful for breaking up long text passages, and making statistical data easier to grasp.

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

Graphs and charts help you explain complex information so your audience can more easily interpret it!

If you need to display dynamic visual content on your WordPress site like charts and graphs, this tutorial will show you exactly how to create and add eye-catching and interactive charts and graphs to your posts and pages that:

• Your site visitors can engage with
• Lets you upload data from your computer or a web-based data source
• Is fully responsive for mobile viewing

If you are displaying visual data like pie charts, comparison bars or trending graphs which contain information that is not going to change (e.g. historical data), an easier option is to create your graphs or charts using an image editing application, convert these into .jpg or .png images and then simply add your image to your pages or posts.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

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

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

Visualizer

Plugin URL

You can install the plugin inside your WP dashboard (we show you how to do this a little further below), or download WordPress Visualizer the WordPress free plugin directory using the link below:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Visualizer Plugin Description

WP Visualizer is a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that allows you to create, manage and insert mobile-responsive charts 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 additional add-ons are needed.

The plugin also contains 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 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 site’s design. Various options are available for each chart that allow you to 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 having to install extra software.

Plugin Installation

Inside your WP dashboard, select Plugins > Add New from the navigation sidebar menu …

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

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

Click OK to continue …

Activate the plugin after installing it …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins section …

Once your plugin has been activated, click on Library …

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

This brings up the plugin’s Visualizer Library options page …

After installing the plugin, the library section will be empty.

The next step is to add the charts and graphs to your library that you plan to publish to your content.

How To Configure The Plugin

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

A page will load in your browser displaying all of the default kinds of charts available.

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 that contains your data …

When creating your CSV data file, ensure that:

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

The screenshot below shows how to format your data …

If you are unsure about how to format your data CSV, simply use the sample file provided with the plugin.

Once you have created your CSV file, 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 then click on ‘Open‘ …

The plugin imports your data from the CSV file and displays it using the graph/chart type you have previously 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, make sure that all of your information is correct (if not, click on the ‘Back’ button and reupload a new data file with the right data), and click ‘Next‘ …

Depending on the chart or graph type you’ve picked, the plugin will display various customization settings …

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

For example, the pie chart offers many configurable options, such as:

• 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’re happy with the look of your chart or graph, click on the ‘Create Chart’ button …

The new graph or chart 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 shortly, this allows you to insert charts and graphs into your WordPress content easily and quickly …

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

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

Visualizer Usage

Once you’ve created a new element and added it to Visualizer, adding it to a post is quite 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 Add Media …

Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …

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

This will place a shortcode into your content …

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

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

You will see the chart or graph in the location you specified …

As mentioned earlier, the plugin also displays responsive graphs for mobile users …

As you can see, Visualizer lets you insert and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can edit your data and the changes will automatically be reflected throughout your website. This makes working with interactive graph data in WordPress very efficient.

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

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

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

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

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