How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

You’ve no doubt heard the adage “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This is certainly true when you are presenting or explaining complex information.

Graphs and charts help to make technical or statistical data simpler to grasp.

You can present data with tables, but if you want your audience to try and make sense of complex information with numbers, percentages or comparisons easily, then charts and graphs let you present your data in an intelligent and meaningful manner that can be easily processed.

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

Need to add charts or graphs to your WordPress posts and pages? This step-by-step tutorial shows you how to use the WP Visualizer plugin – a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that lets you create, manage and embed appealing and mobile-responsive graphs and charts into your WordPress posts and pages that:

• Your web visitors can engage with
• Allows you to add chart or graph data from your hard drive or a web-based data source
• Dynamically resizes for mobile device browsing

If you are displaying visual data like pie charts, comparison data or trending graphs containing static information (e.g. historical data), a simple method you can use is to create your charts or graphs using an image editing application, convert these into jpg and png images and then simply insert the image into your web content.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to easily add interactive bars and pie graphs to WordPress with no coding skills required, the easiest way to do this is to use a plugin.

Fortunately, there is a WordPress plugin that is simple to install, easy-to-use and allows you to not only create great-looking and interactive graphs and charts, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with updateable content.

WP Plugin: Visualizer

Visualizer Plugin URL

You can install the plugin inside your WP dashboard (explained further down the page), or download the WordPress Visualizer plugin from the link below:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Plugin Description

Visualizer is a simple, easy to use and powerful WP plugin that lets you create, manage and insert great-looking and mobile-responsive charts into your WordPress posts and pages in a few simple steps.

WordPress 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 needed.

WordPress Visualizer also provides a variety of charts 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 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. Several options are available for each chart that let you 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 blog or site visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile web browsers without having to install any additional software.

How To Install The Plugin

Inside your WP administration area, select Plugins > Add New from the main admin menu …

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

Locate Visualizer in the search results area and click Install Now …

Click OK to proceed …

Activate the plugin …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins page …

After the plugin has been activated, click on Library …

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

This brings up the plugin’s Visualizer Library page …

After installing the plugin, the library section will be empty.

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

Visualizer Configuration

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

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

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

The graph/chart type will open up in a lightbox.

The next step is to upload a CSV file containing all the data you would like your chart or graph to be populated with …

When creating your CSV data file, ensure that:

• Your first row includes your column headings.
• The second row contains the series type (e.g. boolean, 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 refer to the sample spreadsheet provided 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 your CSV file and data from your computer select ‘From Computer‘ …

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

The plugin will now import the data and display it using the graph/chart type you have chosen …

Upload CSV File From The Web

For a tutorial that explains 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, check that all of your information is correct (if not, click on the ‘Back’ button and reupload a new data file with the correct data), and then click ‘Next‘ …

Depending on the chart or graph type selected, the plugin will display a number of customization settings and options …

The plugin gives you complete control over your chart or graph, and updates your display in real time …

For example, the pie chart offers various 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 appears, 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 allows you to easily insert graphs and charts into your content …

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

After adding an element to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit it, duplicate it, or delete it …

Visualizer Plugin Usage

After you have created a chart or graph and added it to Visualizer, adding it to a post is really very simple.

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 element to be added to your content and click the “insert” icon …

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

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

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

Your post or page displays your chart or graph in the location you specified …

As mentioned previously, Visualizer 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 update your data and your changes will automatically be reflected throughout your site. This makes managing dynamic chart information in WordPress really easy.

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

For additional tutorials on editing, copying, deleting and adding data to your charts, go to the website below:

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

Congratulations! Now you know how to easily add beautiful and mobile-responsive charts and graphs to your WordPress posts and pages.

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