How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

Learn how to create, manage and embed stunning dynamic and interactive charts and graphs into your WordPress posts and pages with a few simple steps …

How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

Add Graphs And Charts To Pages And Posts In WordPress

You’ve heard the adage “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This certainly applies when you are trying to present or explain complex data.

Charts and graphs can help to make technical or statistical data a lot simpler to grasp.

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

How To Add Great-Looking Graphs To A WordPress Post Or Page

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

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

  • Your site visitors can engage with
  • Lets you add data from your computer or a web-based source of data
  • Resizes dynamically for viewing on mobile devices

Visualizer

Practical Tip

If you are displaying visual data like bar charts, comparison data or trending graphs that contain static information (e.g. historical data), an easier option is to create your charts or graphs using a desktop application, convert these into jpg or png images and then simply add the images to your web content.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to easily create dynamic bar charts and graphs in WordPress 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 beautiful and interactive graphs and charts, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with dynamic content.

Visualizer

WP Plugin: Visualizer

Plugin URL

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

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Visualizer Description

Visualizer is an easy-to-use and powerful tool that lets you create, manage and insert great-looking charts and 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 add-ons are needed.

WordPress Visualizer also contains 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

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 your web design. Several options are available for each chart that allow you to further 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 web browsers without having to install additional plugins.

Plugin Installation

From your WP administration area, select Plugins > Add New from the navigation sidebar menu …

How To Intall WP Plugins

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

Install WordPress Plugin: Visualizer

Locate the item in the search results section and click the “Install Now” button …

Install Visualizer - WordPress Plugin

Click OK to go ahead …

Install Visualizer - WordPress Plugin

Activate the plugin after successfully installing it …

Install WordPress Plugin: Visualizer

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins page …

Install Visualizer - WordPress Plugin

Once your plugin has been activated, click on Library

Install Visualizer

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

Install WP Plugin

This brings up the plugin’s Visualizer Library screen …

Visualizer Plugin For WordPress

After installing the plugin, the library will contain no charts.

Your next step is to add the charts and graphs to your library that you will want to display in your pages or posts.

Visualizer Plugin Configuration

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

WP Plugin: Visualizer

A visual gallery displaying all the kinds of graphs available will load on your screen.

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

WordPress Plugin: Visualizer

Your graph/chart type will pop up in a lightbox.

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

Visualizer Plugin For WordPress

Info

When creating your CSV data file, ensure that:

  • The first row includes the column headings.
  • The second row contains the series type (e.g. number, timeofday, etc.)

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

Visualizer Plugin For WordPress

If you are unsure about how to format your CSV file, just use the sample file provided 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 your CSV file from your hard drive select ‘From Computer‘ …

Visualizer - WordPress Plugin

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

Visualizer - WP Plugin

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

WP Plugin: Visualizer

Upload CSV File From The Web

Visualizer - WP Plugin

Important Info

To learn how to create, save and publish data to a Visualizer chart or graph using Google Spreadsheet, go here:

After importing the data, check that all of your information is correct (if not, click on the ‘Back’ button and reupload a new data file containing the right data), and click ‘Next‘ …

Visualizer Plugin For WordPress

Depending on the chart or graph type you have chosen, the plugin will display a number of customization options …

WP Plugin: Visualizer

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

WordPress Plugin: Visualizer

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 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).

Visualizer

Once you are happy with the look of your graph or chart, click on the ‘Create Chart’ button …

Visualizer

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

WP Plugin: Visualizer

Note that new elements are given a unique ID displayed in a shortcode. As you will see shortly, this lets you embed graphs and charts into your posts easily …

Visualizer - WP Plugin

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

Visualizer

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

Visualizer Plugin For WordPress

Plugin Usage

Once you’ve created a new graph or chart and added 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) …

Visualizer

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‘ …

Visualizer

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

Visualizer - WordPress Plugin

This will add a shortcode into your content …

Visualizer Plugin For WordPress

Once you have added the item, click on Publish to publish (or update) your post or page …

Publishing A WordPress Post

After the page/post has been updated, click ‘View post’ to see it …

Visualizer Plugin For WordPress

Your post or page will display your visual element in the location where you’ve added the shortcode …

WP Plugin: Visualizer

As mentioned previously, Visualizer also displays responsive charts for mobile browsers …

WP Plugin: Visualizer

As you can see, Visualizer allows you to add and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can modify your data and the changes will automatically be reflected wherever you have inserted your charts, graphs, comparison bars , etc. in your website. This makes managing interactive chart information in WordPress really easy.

Tutorial

The developers of this plugin have created a number of step-by-step 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, refer to the site below:

Congratulations! Now you know how to easily add attractive and interactive charts and graphs to WordPress.

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"If you're new to WordPress, this can stand on its own as a training course and will stay with you as you progress from beginner to advanced and even guru status." - Bruce (Columbus, Ohio)

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