How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

You’ve no doubt heard the saying “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This is certainly true when you are trying to present or explain complex information.

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

You can present information with tables, but if you want your audience to try and interpret complex information with numbers, percentages and comparisons more easily, then graphs and charts are perfect for helping them interpret the information.

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

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

• Your visitors can engage with
• Lets you add data from your computer or an online data source
• Dynamically resizes for mobile screens

If you plan to display visual data like pie charts, comparison graphs or trending graphs that contain static information (e.g. historical data), an easier way to present this information is to create your graphs or charts using an image editing application, convert these into images and then simply add your files and an image to your posts or pages.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to embed interactive bars and pie graphs into WordPress pages with no coding skills required, the easiest way to do this is to use a plugin.

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

Visualizer

Plugin URL

You can install the plugin from your WordPress dashboard (see further below), or download Visualizer from the link below:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Visualizer Plugin Description

Visualizer is a simple, easy to use and powerful plugin for WordPress that allows you to create, manage and embed beautiful and mobile-responsive graphs and charts into your WordPress posts and pages in just a few simple steps.

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 components are needed.

The plugin also contains a variety of built-in 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 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 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 web visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile web browsers without requiring the installation of any additional plugins.

How To Install WP Visualizer

From your WP dashboard, select Plugins > Add New from the main sidebar menu …

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

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

Click OK to go ahead …

Activate the plugin after successfully installing it …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins area …

Once the plugin has been activated, click on Library …

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

This brings up the plugin’s Visualizer Library options …

After installing 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 graph or chart to the library, click on Add New …

An image gallery displaying all the different types of charts and graphs available will come up on your screen.

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

The graph/chart type will open up in a lightbox.

The next step is to upload a CSV file containing all the data you want your chart or graph to be populated with …

When creating your CSV data file, make sure that:

• The first row contains 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 data CSV, just study the sample CSV file supplied with the plugin.

Next, select your 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 file and click on ‘Open‘ …

The plugin will now import your data from the CSV file and display it using the graph/chart type selected …

Upload CSV File From The Web

For a step-by-step tutorial that shows you 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 the data, check that all of the information is correct (if not, click on the ‘Back’ button and reupload a data file with the right data), and click ‘Next‘ …

Depending on the chart or graph type you have selected, the plugin will display a range of customization options …

Visualizer gives you total control over 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 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 satisfied with the look of your chart or graph, click Create Chart …

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

Note that new elements are given a unique ID displayed as a shortcode. As you will see shortly, this lets you add graphs and charts to your pages and posts very easily …

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

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

Visualizer Usage

After creating a new element and adding it to Visualizer, it’s quite simple to insert it into a post or page.

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 the content and click on the ‘Add Media‘ button …

Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …

Select the chart or graph to be added to your content and click the “insert” icon …

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

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

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

Your post or page displays the chart or graph in where you have inserted the shortcode …

As mentioned previously, Visualizer also displays responsive charts for mobile browsers …

As you can see, Visualizer lets you add and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can change your data and your changes will automatically be reflected throughout your site. This is a real time-saving feature of the plugin if you’re managing dynamic graph data in WordPress.

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

For additional 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 add colorful and mobile-responsive pie charts and graphs to your WordPress posts and pages.

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