How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

You’re probably familiar with the adage “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This certainly applies when you’re trying to present and explain complex information.

Using charts and graphs is a great way to make data much simpler to understand.

You can use tables to present information, but if you want your audience to try and make sense of complex data with numbers, percentages and comparisons quickly, then charts and graphs are perfect for helping them understand your data.

Charts and graphs help present complex data so people can more easily understand it!

If you need to display information visually and dynamically on your WordPress site using graphs and charts, this step-by-step tutorial will show you how to create and add eye-catching and updatable graphs and charts to your WP pages that:

• Your web visitors can interact with
• Allows you to add graph or chart data from your computer or an online data source
• Is responsive for mobile viewers

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

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

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

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

Visualizer Plugin For WordPress

Visualizer URL

You can install the plugin inside your WP dashboard (we show you how to do this further below), or access and download the Visualizer plugin the WP plugin repository using the link below:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Visualizer Plugin Description

WordPress Visualizer is an easy-to-use and powerful WordPress plugin that allows you to create, manage and insert interactive graphs into your WordPress posts and pages in 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

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 your web design. 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 blog or site visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile device browsers without requiring the installation of extra plugins.

How To Install WP Visualizer

Inside your WP dashboard, select Plugins > Add New from the navigation sidebar menu …

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

Locate the entry in the search results area and click the “Install Now” button …

Click OK to go ahead …

Activate the plugin …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins page …

After the plugin has been activated, click on Library …

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

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

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

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

Plugin Configuration

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

A page will appear in your screen with all the different kinds of charts and graphs available.

Select the chart or graph type 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 containing your data …

When creating your CSV data file, make sure that:

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

The screenshot below shows how to format your data …

If you are unsure about how to format your CSV file, just use the sample spreadsheet supplied with the plugin.

Next, 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 from your computer select ‘From Computer‘ …

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

The plugin imports your data from the CSV file and displays it using the graph/chart type you have 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, check that all of your information is correct (if not, click on the ‘Back’ button and reupload a data file with the correct data), and click ‘Next‘ …

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

Visualizer 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, 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’re happy with the look of your chart or graph, click on the ‘Create Chart’ button …

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

Note that every element is given a unique ID displayed in a shortcode. As you will see in just a moment, this allows you to easily insert charts and graphs into your content …

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

After a chart or graph has been added to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit it, duplicate it, or delete it …

Plugin Usage

After you have created a graph or chart and added it to the Visualizer Library, adding it to pages or posts is really 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 the ‘Add Media‘ button …

Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …

Select the graph or chart to be added to your content and click the “insert” icon …

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

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

After publishing the page/post, click ‘View post’ to see it …

Your chart or graph will display in your content …

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

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

The developers of this plugin 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 additional 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 add stunning and mobile-responsive charts and graphs to WordPress.

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