How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

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

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

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

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

Need to add charts and graphs to WordPress? This step-by-step tutorial shows you how to use WordPress Visualizer – an easy-to-use and powerful WordPress plugin that allows you to create, manage and embed great-looking graphs into your WordPress posts and pages with just a few simple steps that:

• Your site visitors can interact with
• Lets you add chart or graph data from your hard drive or a web-based source of data
• Dynamically resizes for viewing on mobile devices

If you are displaying visual data like pie charts, comparison graphs or trending graphs containing static information (e.g. historical data), an easier option is to create your charts or graphs using an image editing application, convert these into images and then simply add the image to your posts or pages.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

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

Fortunately, there is a great WordPress plugin that is simple to install, easy-to-use and allows you to not only create beautiful and interactive graphs and charts, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with dynamic information.

WordPress Plugin: Visualizer

Visualizer URL

You can install the plugin from your WP dashboard (we explain how to do this further down the page), or access and download the WP Visualizer plugin here:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Plugin Description

WordPress Visualizer is a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that allows you to create, manage and insert appealing and dynamic charts and graphs into your WordPress posts and pages in 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 required.

WordPress Visualizer also provides 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 flexible and customizable, 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 let you customize their look.

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 any extra plugins.

Plugin Installation

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

In the Add Plugins screen type in “visualizer” into the search field and click enter …

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

Click OK to continue …

Activate the plugin after installation is successful …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins area …

After 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 options screen …

After installing the plugin, this section will be empty.

Your next step is to add add charts and graphs to your plugin library.

How To Configure Visualizer

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

A visual gallery displaying all of the default kinds of graphs and charts available will load on your screen.

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

The selected 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:

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

The screenshot below shows how to format your data as required …

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

Once you have completed this step, select your data source (‘From Computer’ or ‘From Web’) in the ‘Upload CSV File’ section.

Upload CSV File From Computer

To upload the CSV file from your hard drive select ‘From Computer‘ …

Use the browser to locate and select your data file and then click on ‘Open‘ …

The plugin imports the data and displays it using the graph/chart type you have 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 with the right data), and then click ‘Next‘ …

Depending on the chart or graph type you’ve chosen, the plugin will display a number of customization options and settings …

The WordPress Visualizer 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 chart or graph, click on the ‘Create Chart’ button …

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

Note that each element is given a unique ID displayed as a shortcode. As you will see very soon, this allows you to 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 graph or chart to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit it, clone it, or trash it …

Visualizer Usage

Once you’ve created a new chart or graph and added it to the Library, adding it to a post or page 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 add to your content and click on the “insert” icon …

This adds a shortcode into your content …

After you have finished adding your element, click on Publish to publish (or update) your content …

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

Your item will appear in the content …

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

As you can see, the Visualizer plugin lets you insert and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can change your data and your changes will automatically be reflected wherever you have inserted your charts, graphs, comparison bars , etc. in your website. This makes working with interactive chart data in WordPress very efficient.

The developers of this plugin have created a number of step-by-step 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, go to the site below:

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

Congratulations! Now you know how to insert appealing and mobile-responsive pie charts and graphs into your WordPress pages and posts.

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