How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

You’ve no doubt heard the saying “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This certainly applies when you’re trying to present or explain data.

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

You can use tables to present information, but if you want your audience to try and interpret complex data with figures, percentages and comparisons quickly, then graphs and charts allow you to present the data in a meaningful and intelligent manner that can be easily understood.

Charts and graphs help explain complex information so people can more easily interpret it!

If you need to present information visually and dynamically on your WordPress site like graphs and charts, this tutorial will show you how to create and add colourful and updateable charts to your WordPress posts that:

• Your web visitors can interact with
• Allows you to add data from your hard drive or a web-based data source
• Resizes dynamically for mobile devices

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

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to create interactive bar charts and pie graphs in WordPress with no coding skills required, the easiest way to do this is to use a plugin.

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

Visualizer Plugin For WordPress

Visualizer URL

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

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Visualizer Plugin Description

WP Visualizer is a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that lets you create, manage and embed interactive graphs and charts into your WordPress posts and pages in just a few simple steps.

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 extra addons are required.

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 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. A number of options are available for each chart that allow you to 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 site visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile devices without having to install any additional plugins.

Plugin Installation

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

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

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

Click OK to proceed …

Activate the plugin after installation is successful …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins section …

After the plugin has been activated, click on Library …

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

This brings up the plugin’s Visualizer Library settings …

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

The next step is to add the charts and graphs to your library that you plan to publish to your content.

Visualizer Configuration

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

A page will appear in your browser displaying all the different types of graphs available.

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

Your selected graph/chart type will open up in a new window.

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

When creating your CSV data file, make sure that:

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

The screenshot below shows how to format your data correctly …

If you are not sure how to format your CSV file, simply refer to the sample spreadsheet that comes 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‘ …

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

The plugin will now import your data and display it using the graph/chart type 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, make sure that all of the information is correct (if not, click on the ‘Back’ button and reupload a new data file containing the correct data), and then click ‘Next‘ …

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

The WordPress Visualizer plugin 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 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 are happy with the way your graph or chart is looking, click Create Chart …

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

Note that new elements are given a unique ID displayed as a shortcode. As you will see in just a moment, this lets you add graphs and charts to your content very quickly …

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

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

Plugin Usage

Once you have created a new graph or chart and added it to the Library, adding it to pages or posts is very 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 your content and click on the ‘Add Media‘ button …

Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …

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

This adds a shortcode into your content …

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

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

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

As mentioned previously, Visualizer also displays responsive charts for viewing on mobile devices …

As you can see, the Visualizer plugin lets you add 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 graph data in WordPress very efficient.

The plugin developers have created a number 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, refer to the website below:

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

Congratulations! Now you know how to add attractive and dynamic bar charts and graphs to your WordPress pages.

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