How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

No doubt you’re familiar with the saying “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This is certainly true when you’re trying to present and explain complex information.

Charts and graphs help to break up content containing a disproportionate amount of text, and make statistical data simpler and easier to digest.

You can present information with tables, but if you want your audience to try and interpret complex data with figures, percentages and comparisons easily, then graphs and charts are perfect for helping them understand your information.

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

If you need to display dynamic visual content on your WordPress site using charts and graphs, this step-by-step tutorial will show you exactly how to create eye-catching and updateable charts and graphs to your posts that:

• Your visitors can engage with
• Lets you upload data from your hard drive or an online data source
• Will resize dynamically for mobile screens

If you are displaying visual data like pie charts, comparison graphs or trending graphs which contain information that is not going to change (e.g. historical data), an easier option is to create the charts or graphs using an image editing application, convert these into jpg and png files and then simply add the image to your page or post.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to easily embed interactive 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 plugin for WordPress sites that is simple to install, easy-to-use and allows you to not only create appealing and interactive graphs and charts, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with updatable content.

Visualizer Plugin For WordPress

Plugin URL

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

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Visualizer Plugin Description

WP Visualizer is a simple, easy to use and powerful plugin for WordPress that allows you to create, manage and embed colorful charts and graphs into your WordPress posts and pages with just a few mouse clicks.

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 add-ons are required.

Visualizer also contains a variety of built-in 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

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 the look and feel of your website. A number of options are available for each chart that allow you to fully 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 having to install any additional software.

How To Install The Plugin

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

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

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

Click OK to continue …

Activate the plugin …

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 selecting Media > Visualizer Library in the main menu …

This brings up the plugin’s Visualizer Library screen …

After installing the plugin, the library will contain no charts.

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

How To Configure The Visualizer Plugin

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

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

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

Your 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, ensure that:

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

The screenshot below shows how to format your data as per the requirements above …

If you are unsure about how to format your CSV file, simply use the sample file 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 and data from your computer 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

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

Depending on the chart or graph type you have selected, the plugin will display various customization settings and options …

The WordPress Visualizer plugin gives you full 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 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 are happy with the way your graph or chart is looking, click Create Chart …

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

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

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

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

Visualizer Usage

After creating a element and adding it to Visualizer, it’s very easy to insert it into posts or pages.

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

This will place a shortcode into your content …

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

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

Your post or page will display your element in the location you specified …

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

As you can see, Visualizer allows you to add and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can modify your data and the changes will automatically be reflected throughout your site. This is one of the great benefits of using the Visualizer plugin if you’re managing dynamic chart data in WordPress.

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

For 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 create appealing and mobile-responsive pie charts and graphs in WordPress with WordPress Visualizer.

***

***