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 are trying to present or explain complex information.

Graphs and charts help to make data easier to understand.

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

Graphs and charts help present complex data so people can more easily understand it!

If you need to learn how to display information visually and dynamically on your WordPress site like graphs and charts, this step-by-step tutorial will show you how to create and add beautiful and updatable charts to your posts and pages that:

• Your visitors can engage with
• Lets you add data from your computer or a web-based data source
• Is dynamically responsive for mobile viewing

If you plan to display visual data like bar charts, comparison graphs or trending graphs containing static information (e.g. historical data), a simple method you can use to present your information is to create your charts or graphs using a desktop application, convert these into .jpg and .png files and then simply insert your image into your site content.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to easily embed interactive bar charts and pie charts into your WordPress pages and posts 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 mobile-responsive charts and graphs, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with updatable content.

WordPress Plugin: Visualizer

Visualizer Plugin URL

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

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Plugin Description

Visualizer is a simple, easy to use and powerful plugin that allows you to create, manage and embed beautiful and interactive graphs into your WordPress posts and pages in just a few mouse clicks.

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 additional plugins are needed.

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 the look and feel of your website. A number of options are available for each chart that let you fully 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 web visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile device browsers without requiring the installation of additional plugins.

How To Install The Plugin

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

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

Locate the item in the search results area 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 section …

After your plugin has been activated, click on Library …

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

This brings up the plugin’s Visualizer Library page …

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

The next step is to add the charts and graphs to your library that you plan to display in your pages or posts.

How To Configure Visualizer

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

An image gallery displaying all of the different kinds of charts and graphs available will load on your screen.

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

The selected graph/chart type will open 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 includes your column headings.
• Your 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 not sure how to format your CSV file, simply study the sample CSV file provided with the plugin.

Once you have created your CSV file, select the data source (‘From Computer’ or ‘From Web’) in the ‘Upload CSV File’ section.

Upload CSV File From Computer

To upload the CSV file from your hard drive select ‘From Computer‘ …

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

The plugin imports your data from the CSV file and displays it using the graph/chart type chosen …

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, check that all of the 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 you’ve selected, the plugin displays a number of customization options …

The WordPress Visualizer plugin gives you total 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 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 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 satisfied with the look of your chart or graph, click on the ‘Create Chart’ button …

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

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

Charts and graphs added to the Visualizer Library can be accessed by their type …

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

Visualizer Plugin Usage

After creating a new graph or chart and adding it to Visualizer, it’s easy to insert it into your 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 your content and click on the ‘Add Media‘ button …

Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …

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

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

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

Once your page has been updated, click ‘View post’ to see the result …

Your visual element will show in the location you specified …

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

As you can see, WordPress Visualizer lets you insert and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can change your data and your changes will automatically be reflected throughout your site. This makes managing interactive chart data in WordPress really easy.

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

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 insert attractive and mobile-responsive bar charts and graphs into WordPress with WP Visualizer plugin.

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