How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

You’re probably familiar with the old saying “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This is certainly true when you’re presenting and explaining complex data.

Using graphs and charts is a great way to break up long chunks of text, and make technical or statistical data a whole lot simpler to digest.

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

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

If you want to learn how to display information visually and dynamically on your WordPress site using charts and graphs, this step-by-step tutorial will show you exactly how to create eye-catching and updateable graphs and charts to your WP posts and pages that:

• Your web visitors can interact with
• Lets you add data from your hard drive or an online data source
• Is dynamically responsive for mobile viewers

If you plan to display visual data like bar charts, comparison charts or trending graphs which contain information that is not going to change (e.g. historical data), an easier way to add this information is to create your charts or graphs using a desktop application, convert these into images and then simply insert your files and an image into your content.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

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

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

WP Plugin: Visualizer

Visualizer Plugin URL

You can install the plugin inside your WP dashboard (explained a little further down the page), or download WordPress Visualizer from the link below:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Visualizer Plugin Description

WP Visualizer is a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that lets you create, manage and embed great-looking graphs and charts into your WordPress posts and pages in just a few simple steps.

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 plugins or add-ons are needed.

WordPress Visualizer also comes with a variety of charts that are optimized to address all your data visualization needs, including:

• Line chart
• Area chart
• Bar chart
• Column chart
• Pie chart
• Geo chart
• Gauge chart
• Candlestick chart
• Scatter chart

The plugin is also 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 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 blog or site visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile browsers without having to install any extra software.

Plugin Installation

From your WordPress administration area, select Plugins > Add New from the navigation sidebar menu …

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

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

Click OK to proceed …

Activate the plugin after successfully installing it …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins page …

After your plugin has been activated, click on Library …

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

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

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

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

How To Configure The Plugin

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

You will be presented with all the kinds of charts available.

Select the type of graph or chart 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 with all the data you want your chart or graph to be populated with …

When creating your CSV data file, ensure that:

• The first row includes the column headings.
• The second row includes the series type (e.g. number, timeofday, etc.)

The screenshot below shows how to format your data correctly …

If you are unsure about how to format your CSV file, just download the sample supplied 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 your CSV file from your computer select ‘From Computer‘ …

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

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

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 containing the correct data), and click ‘Next‘ …

Depending on the chart or graph type you’ve selected, the plugin displays a range of customization settings …

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

For example, the pie chart offers various 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 happy with the look of your graph or chart, click Create Chart …

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

Note that every element is given a unique ID displayed as a shortcode. As you will see very soon, this lets you easily embed charts and graphs into your content …

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

After an element has been added to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit it, duplicate it, or trash it …

Visualizer Plugin Usage

After creating a element and adding it to the Visualizer Library, adding it to posts or pages 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 your content and click on Add Media …

Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …

Find the element to be added to your content and click on the “insert” icon …

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

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

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

Your post or page will display the element in the content …

As mentioned previously, the plugin also displays responsive graphs and charts for mobile viewing …

As you can see, WordPress Visualizer lets you add and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can change your data and the changes will automatically be reflected throughout your site. This makes working with dynamic graph information in WordPress very easy.

The plugin developers 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 tutorials on editing, cloning, deleting and adding data to your charts, refer to the site below:

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

Congratulations! Now you know how to easily insert dynamic pie charts and graphs into your WordPress pages with WP Visualizer.

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