How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

You’ve heard the old saying “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This is certainly true when you’re presenting or explaining complex information.

Using graphs and charts can help to break up long passage of text, and make technical data more easily digestible.

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

Graphs and charts help explain complex data so your audience can more easily understand it!

Need to add charts and graphs to WordPress? This 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 beautiful charts into your WordPress posts and pages with a few simple steps that:

• Your site visitors can engage with
• Lets you add chart or graph data from your computer or an online data source
• Is responsive for mobile users

If you are displaying visual data like pie charts, comparison data or trending graphs which contain information that is not going to change (e.g. historical data), a simple method you can use is to create the charts or graphs using a desktop application, convert these into .jpg or .png images and then simply add your image files to your content.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to easily insert interactive bar charts and graphs 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 users that is simple to install, easy-to-use and allows you to not only create stunning and interactive charts and graphs, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with updatable content.

Visualizer

Visualizer URL

You can install the plugin from your WP dashboard (see a little further down the page), or download Visualizer the WordPress free plugin directory using the link below:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Visualizer Description

Visualizer is an easy-to-use and powerful WP plugin that lets you create, manage and embed great-looking graphs and charts into your WordPress posts and pages with just a few mouse clicks.

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 components are needed.

The plugin 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

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. Several options are available for each chart that let you 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 site visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile browsers without requiring the installation of any additional software.

How To Install Visualizer

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

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

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

Click OK to continue …

Activate the plugin after successfully installing it …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins page …

Once the plugin has been activated, click on Library …

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

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

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

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

How To Configure The Plugin

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

An image gallery displaying all of the default types of charts available will load on your screen.

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

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

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

When creating your CSV data file, ensure that:

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

The screenshot below shows how to format your data …

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

Once you have completed this step, 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 and data from your hard drive select ‘From Computer‘ …

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

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

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, see the article below:

• 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 data file with the right data), and then click ‘Next‘ …

Depending on the chart or graph type you have selected, the plugin will display various customization settings and options …

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

For example, the pie chart offers many configurable options, including:

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

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

Note that new visual elements are given a unique ID displayed as a shortcode. As you will see shortly, this lets you 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, clone it, or trash it …

Visualizer Plugin Usage

After creating a element and adding it to Visualizer, adding it to posts or pages 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 the 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 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 …

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

You will see the visual element in the content …

As mentioned earlier, Visualizer also displays responsive graphs for mobile viewing …

As you can see, Visualizer allows you to insert and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can update your data and your changes will automatically be reflected wherever you have inserted your charts, graphs, comparison bars , etc. in your website. This is great if you’re managing dynamic chart information in WordPress.

The developers of this plugin 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, copying, deleting and adding data to your charts, refer to the website below:

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

Congratulations! Now you know how to create colorful and interactive bar charts and graphs in WordPress with WordPress Visualizer plugin.

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