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 data.

Using graphs and charts is great for breaking up technical or boring information, and making statistical data and information a lot easier to grasp.

You can present information with tables, but if you want your audience to try and interpret complex information with figures, trends or relationships easily, then graphs and charts allow you to present data in an intelligent and meaningful manner that can be quickly and easily understood.

Charts and graphs help explain complex information so your audience can more easily interpret it!

Need to add charts or graphs to WordPress? This tutorial shows you how to use WordPress Visualizer – an easy-to-use and powerful WordPress plugin that lets you create, manage and embed colorful and interactive charts and graphs into your WordPress posts and pages that:

• Your visitors can engage with
• Allows you to upload data from your hard drive or a web-based source of data
• Resizes dynamically for viewing on mobile devices

If you are displaying visual data like bar charts, comparison bars or trending graphs containing static information (e.g. historical data), a simple method you can use to display this data is to create the graphs or charts using a desktop application, convert these into jpg or png images and then simply insert your images into your web content.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

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

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

Visualizer Plugin For WordPress

Visualizer Plugin URL

You can install the plugin inside your WP dashboard (explained a little further below), or download the WP 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 allows you to create, manage and insert beautiful and interactive graphs into your WordPress posts and pages in 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 plugins or add-ons are required.

Visualizer also contains a variety of built-in optimized for 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. Several 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 site visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile browsers without requiring the installation of any additional software.

Plugin Installation

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

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

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

Click OK to go ahead …

Activate the plugin after installing it …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins page …

After your plugin has been activated, click on Library …

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

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

When you first install the plugin, the library contains no charts.

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

Visualizer Plugin Configuration

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

A gallery displaying all the kinds of 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 …

Your selected graph/chart type will pop up in a lightbox.

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

When creating your CSV data file, make sure that:

• Your first row contains your column headings.
• The second row includes the series type (e.g. number, 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, simply refer to the sample supplied with the plugin.

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

Upload CSV File From Computer

To upload your CSV file and data 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 from the CSV file and displays it using the graph/chart type selected …

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

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

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’re satisfied with how your chart or graph is looking, click Create Chart …

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

Note that every element is given a unique ID displayed as a shortcode. As you will see shortly, this lets you insert charts and graphs into your WordPress pages and posts easily …

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

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

Visualizer Usage

After you have created a new element and added it to the Visualizer Library, adding it to a post or page is very 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 the content and click on Add Media …

Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …

Select the element you want to insert into your content and click the “insert” icon …

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

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

After updating your page/post, click ‘View post’ to see the end result …

Your page or post should display your item in where you’ve inserted the shortcode …

As mentioned previously, Visualizer also displays responsive visual elements for viewing on mobile devices …

As you can see, WordPress Visualizer allows you to add 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 managing dynamic graph data in WordPress really easy.

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

For 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 beautiful and mobile-responsive bar charts and graphs into WordPress.

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