How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

You’re probably familiar with the old saying “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This certainly applies when you’re trying to present or explain complex information.

Using graphs and charts is great for making technical or statistical data much easier to digest.

You can use tables to present information, but if you want people to try and make sense of complex data with figures, percentages and relationships easily, then graphs and charts are perfect for helping them visualize the information.

Charts and graphs help you present complex data so people can more easily understand it!

If you want to display information visually and dynamically on your WordPress site like charts and graphs, this step-by-step tutorial will show you how to create and add colourful and updatable graphs and charts to your pages that:

• Your site visitors can engage with
• Allows you to upload data from your computer or an online data source
• Dynamically resizes for mobile browsers

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

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to easily create dynamic bars and graphs in your WordPress content 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 great-looking and mobile-responsive graphs and charts, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with updateable information.

Visualizer – WordPress Plugin

Visualizer Plugin URL

You can install the plugin from your WordPress dashboard (we will explain how to do this a little further down the page), or download the WordPress Visualizer plugin from the link below:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Plugin Description

The WordPress Visualizer plugin is a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that lets you create, manage and insert beautiful and interactive graphs and charts into your WordPress posts and pages in 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 addons are needed.

Visualizer 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 flexible and customizable, allowing you to use Google Chart Tools with their default setting, or configure an extensive set of options to match your web design. A number of options are available for each chart that let you 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 browsers without having to install any extra software.

Plugin Installation

From your WordPress dashboard, select Plugins > Add New from the dashboard menu …

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

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

Click OK to go ahead …

Activate the plugin after installation is successful …

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 choosing Media > Visualizer Library from your dashboard menu …

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

When you first install the plugin, this section will be empty.

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

How To Configure The Visualizer Plugin

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

A visual gallery displaying all of the types of graphs available will come up on your screen.

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

Your selected graph/chart type will open up in a new window.

The next step is to upload a CSV file that contains your data …

When creating your CSV data file, make sure that:

• The first row contains the column headings.
• The second row contains 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 CSV file, simply study the sample that comes with the plugin.

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

Upload CSV File From Computer

To upload a CSV file and data from your computer select ‘From Computer‘ …

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

The plugin imports the data and displays it using the graph/chart type chosen …

Upload CSV File From The Web

To learn 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 the information is correct (if not, click on the ‘Back’ button and reupload a data file with the correct data), and then click ‘Next‘ …

Depending on the chart or graph type you have chosen, the plugin displays a number of customization settings …

The plugin gives you full control over your information, and updates your display in real time …

For example, the pie chart offers various 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 how your graph or chart is looking, click Create Chart …

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

Note that new visual elements are given a unique ID displayed in a shortcode. As you will see shortly, this allows you to add charts and graphs to your WordPress pages easily …

Charts and graphs added to the Visualizer Library can be accessed by their type …

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

Plugin Usage

Once you have created a graph or chart and added it to Visualizer, it’s simple to insert it into your posts or pages.

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

Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …

Select the graph or chart you want to add to your content and click on the “insert” icon …

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

Once you have finished adding the visual element, click on Publish to publish (or update) your post or page …

After updating your page/post, click ‘View post’ to see it …

The visual element will show up in the location you specified …

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

As you can see, the Visualizer plugin allows you to insert and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can change your data and the changes will automatically be reflected throughout your website. This makes working with interactive graph information in WordPress really efficient.

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

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 create colorful and dynamic bar charts and graphs in WordPress.

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