How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

You’ve no doubt heard the saying “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This is certainly true when you’re presenting and explaining data.

Graphs and charts are a great way to make data more easily digestible.

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

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

If you want to learn how to present information visually and dynamically on your WordPress site using charts and graphs, this step-by-step tutorial will show you how to create colourful and interactive charts and graphs to your posts that:

• Your site visitors can interact with
• Lets you upload data from your computer or an online data source
• Will resize dynamically for mobile viewers

If you are displaying visual data like bar charts, comparison charts or trending graphs that contain static information (e.g. historical data), an easier way to display your data is to create your charts or graphs using an image editing application, convert these into images and then simply add the image files to your content.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to add interactive bars and graphs to WordPress posts and pages 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 mobile-responsive charts and graphs, 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 below), or access and download Visualizer the WordPress plugin directory using the link below:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Visualizer Plugin Description

The WordPress Visualizer plugin is a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that allows you to create, manage and insert stunning and interactive graphs and charts into your WordPress posts and pages in 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 additional plugins are needed.

Visualizer also provides a variety of charts that are optimized to address 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 site’s design. A number of options are available for each chart that let you fully customize their look and feel.

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 visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile browsers without having to install additional software.

Plugin Installation

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

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

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

Click OK to go ahead …

Activate the plugin …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins area …

Once 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 admin menu …

This takes you to the plugin’s Visualizer Library options page …

When you first install 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 insert into your posts or pages.

Visualizer Configuration

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

A visual gallery displaying all of the default types 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 …

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

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

When creating your CSV data file, make sure that:

• The first row includes the column headings.
• The second row includes the series type (e.g. string, date, etc.)

The screenshot below shows how to format your data as per the above requirements …

If you are unsure about how to format your data CSV, just download the sample spreadsheet supplied 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 the CSV file from your hard drive select ‘From Computer‘ …

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

The plugin will import the data from the CSV file and display 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, make sure 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 you have selected, the plugin displays a number of customization options …

Visualizer gives you total control over your information, and updates your display in real time …

For example, the pie chart offers various 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 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 look of your graph or chart, click Create Chart …

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

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

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

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

Visualizer Usage

After you’ve created a new element and added it to Visualizer, adding it to a page or post is really 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 Add Media …

Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …

Select the element you want to insert into your content and click the “insert” icon …

This adds a shortcode for the element into your content …

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

After publishing the page/post, click ‘View post’ to see the result …

Your post or page should display the item in the location you specified …

As mentioned earlier, Visualizer also displays responsive charts for mobile devices …

As you can see, the Visualizer plugin lets you add and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can edit your data and your changes will automatically be reflected throughout your site. This makes adding interactive graph information in WordPress really easy.

The plugin developers have created a series of step-by-step tutorials you can refer to for ways to edit, customize and use WordPress Visualizer.

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

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

Congratulations! Now you know how to create attractive and mobile-responsive bar charts and graphs in WordPress with WordPress Visualizer.

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