How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

You’re probably familiar with the old saying “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This is certainly true when you are presenting and explaining complex data.

Using charts and graphs is useful for making data more easily digestible.

You can use tables to present data, but if you want your audience to try and make sense of complex information with figures, trends and relationships quickly, then charts and graphs are perfect for helping them visualize the data.

Charts and graphs help present complex information so your audience can more easily interpret it!

Need to add charts or graphs to WordPress? This tutorial shows you how to use WordPress Visualizer – an easy-to-use and powerful plugin for WordPress that lets you create, manage and embed appealing and dynamic graphs into your WordPress posts and pages with just a few mouse clicks that:

• Your visitors can interact with
• Lets you upload graph or chart data from your computer or an online data source
• Is fully responsive for viewing on mobile devices

If you plan to display visual data like bar charts, comparison graphs or trending graphs which contain information that is not going to change (e.g. historical data), an easier way to present the information is to create the graphs or charts using an image editing application, convert these into jpg or png files and then simply add your image to your posts or pages.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

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

Visualizer Plugin For WordPress

Visualizer Plugin URL

You can install the plugin in your WordPress dashboard (see a little further below), or access and download WordPress Visualizer the WordPress plugin directory using the link below:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Plugin Description

WordPress Visualizer is a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that lets you create, manage and embed mobile-responsive charts and graphs 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 plugins or add-ons are needed.

WordPress Visualizer also provides a variety of built-in optimized for 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 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 having to install any extra software.

Plugin Installation

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

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

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

Click OK to continue …

Activate the plugin after successfully installing it …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins area …

After your plugin has been activated, click on Library …

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

This brings up the plugin’s Visualizer Library settings screen …

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

The next step is to add the charts and graphs to your library that you will want to publish to your pages and posts.

Visualizer Plugin Configuration

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

You will see all the kinds of charts available.

Select the graph or chart 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 containing your data …

When creating your CSV data file, ensure that:

• The first row includes your column headings.
• The second row contains the series type (e.g. boolean, datetime, etc.)

The screenshot below shows how to format your data as explained above …

If you are not sure how to format your data CSV, just use the sample spreadsheet that comes with the plugin.

Once you have created your CSV file, 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 from your hard drive select ‘From Computer‘ …

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

The plugin imports your data and displays it using the graph/chart type you have chosen …

Upload CSV File From The Web

For a step-by-step tutorial that explains 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 the data, make sure that all of your information is correct (if not, click on the ‘Back’ button and reupload a data file containing the correct data), and click ‘Next‘ …

Depending on the chart or graph type you have picked, the plugin displays various customization options and settings …

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

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

Note that each new element is given a unique ID displayed as a shortcode. As you will see shortly, this allows you to easily embed graphs and charts into your content …

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

After an item has been added to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit its details, duplicate it, or trash it …

Visualizer Plugin Usage

Once you have created a element and added it to Visualizer, it’s quite simple to add it to a post or page.

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 Add Media …

Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …

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

This inserts a shortcode into your content …

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

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

Your page or post displays your element in where you have inserted the shortcode …

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

As you can see, Visualizer allows you to add 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 great if you’re managing interactive chart data in WordPress.

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

For additional tutorials on editing, cloning, deleting and adding data to your charts, visit the site below:

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

Congratulations! Now you know how to insert stunning pie charts and graphs into your WordPress pages and posts.

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