How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

You’ve heard the adage “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This is certainly true when you’re presenting and explaining data.

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

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

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

If you need to learn how to present information visually and dynamically on your WordPress site using graphs and charts, this tutorial will show you exactly how to create beautiful and updateable charts to your pages that:

• Your site visitors can engage with
• Lets you upload data from your computer or an online source of data
• Resizes dynamically for mobile viewers

If you plan to display visual data like bar charts, comparison bars or trending graphs that contain static information (e.g. historical data), an easier way to add the information is to create the charts or graphs using an image editing application, convert these into jpg and png files and then simply add your image files to your web content.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to easily insert dynamic bar charts and pie charts into 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 WordPress plugin that is simple to install, easy-to-use and allows you to not only create beautiful and dynamic graphs and charts, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with dynamic content.

WordPress Plugin: Visualizer

Plugin URL

You can install the plugin inside your WordPress dashboard (see a little further below), or download Visualizer here:

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 insert stunning and mobile-responsive graphs into your WordPress posts and pages in 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 additional components are required.

Visualizer also provides a variety of charts 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 allow you to further customize their look and feel.

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 device 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 screen type in search for “visualizer” and hit enter …

Locate Visualizer in the search results section and click the “Install Now” button …

Click OK to proceed …

Activate the plugin after successfully installing it …

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 the dashboard menu …

This brings up the plugin’s Visualizer Library options page …

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

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

How To Configure Visualizer

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

A gallery displaying all of the built-in kinds of charts available will load on your screen.

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

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

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

When creating your CSV data file, ensure that:

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

The screenshot below shows how to format your data …

If you are unsure about how to format your CSV file, just study the sample spreadsheet 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 and data from your hard drive select ‘From Computer‘ …

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

The plugin imports the data and displays it using the graph/chart type you have previously selected …

Upload CSV File From The Web

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

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

Visualizer gives you full control of 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 happy with the way your chart or graph is looking, click Create Chart …

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

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

Graphs and charts added to the Visualizer Library can easily be accessed by their 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 chart or graph and adding it to Visualizer, adding it to a post or page is quite simple.

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 Add Media …

Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …

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

This inserts a shortcode into your content …

Once you have added the item, click on Publish to publish (or update) your content …

After your post has been updated, click ‘View post’ to see the results …

The chart will show in the location you specified …

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

As you can see, the Visualizer plugin lets you add and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can edit your data and your changes will automatically be reflected wherever you have inserted your charts, graphs, comparison bars , etc. in your site. This is very convenient if you’re managing dynamic chart information in WordPress.

The plugin developers have created a series of tutorials you can use to learn how 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 insert stunning and mobile-responsive pie charts and graphs into your WordPress pages and posts with WordPress Visualizer.

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