How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

You’ve no doubt heard the old saying “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This is certainly true when you are trying to present or explain data.

Charts and graphs help to make technical or statistical data more easily digestible.

You can present information with tables, but if you want your audience to try and make sense of complex information with figures, trends or relationships more easily, then charts and graphs let you present the data in a meaningful and intelligent manner that can be quickly and easily understood.

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

Need to add charts and graphs to WordPress? This step-by-step tutorial shows you how to use WordPress Visualizer – a simple, easy to use and powerful WP plugin that allows you to create, manage and embed interactive graphs into your WordPress posts and pages in a few mouse clicks that:

• Your site visitors can interact with
• Lets you add chart or graph data from your hard drive or an online data source
• Is dynamically responsive for viewing on mobile devices

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 a desktop application, convert these into images and then simply insert the image files into your page or post.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to insert dynamic bars and graphs into WordPress 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 appealing and interactive charts and graphs, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with updatable content.

Visualizer – WP Plugin

Visualizer Plugin URL

You can install the plugin from your WP dashboard (we will show you how to do this a little further down the page), or access and download Visualizer the WordPress plugin repository using the link below:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Visualizer Description

WP Visualizer is a simple, easy to use and powerful plugin that lets you create, manage and embed attractive and interactive charts and 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 extra addons are needed.

The plugin also provides 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 a flexible and customizable plugin, 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 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 visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile devices without having to install extra software.

Plugin Installation

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

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

Locate the plugin in the search results screen and click the “Install Now” button …

Click OK to go ahead …

Activate the plugin …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins section …

Once your plugin has been activated, click on Library …

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

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

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

Your next step is to add the charts and graphs to your library that you will want to insert into your content.

How To Configure The Visualizer Plugin

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

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

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

The 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.
• Your second row contains the series type (e.g. string, date, etc.)

The screenshot below shows how to format your data as required …

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

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

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

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 various configurable options, such as:

• 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 are satisfied with how your chart or graph looks, click on the ‘Create Chart’ button …

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

Note that new visual elements are given a unique ID displayed as a shortcode. As you will see in a moment, this allows you to embed charts and graphs into your pages and posts very easily …

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

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

Visualizer Plugin Usage

After creating a element and adding it to the Visualizer Library, adding it to a page is really very 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 your content and click on the ‘Add Media‘ button …

Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …

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

This will place a shortcode into your content …

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

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

Your page or post displays the chart or graph in where you’ve added the shortcode …

As mentioned previously, the plugin also displays responsive charts for mobile viewers …

As you can see, WordPress Visualizer allows you to insert and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can update your data and the changes will automatically be reflected throughout your website. This is very convenient if you’re adding dynamic chart information in WordPress.

The developers of this plugin 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, copying, deleting and adding data to your charts, refer to the site below:

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

Congratulations! Now you know how to create great-looking and interactive pie charts and graphs in WordPress.

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