How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

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

Charts and graphs help to break up long passage of text, and make technical data a whole lot easier to digest.

You can use tables to present information, but if you want people to try and interpret complex data with numbers, percentages or relationships more easily, then charts and graphs allow you to present your information in a meaningful and intelligent way that can be quickly and easily processed.

Graphs and charts help you explain complex data so people can more easily understand it!

Need to add charts and graphs to your WordPress posts and pages? This step-by-step tutorial shows you how to use the WP Visualizer plugin – a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that allows you to create, manage and embed beautiful graphs and charts into your WordPress posts and pages in a few mouse clicks that:

• Your visitors can engage with
• Lets you add chart or graph data from your hard drive or a web-based data source
• Is dynamically responsive for mobile browsers

If you plan to display visual data like bar charts, comparison data or trending graphs containing static information (e.g. historical data), an easier option is to create the graphs or charts using a desktop application, convert these into .jpg or .png images and then simply insert your files and an image into your site content.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to easily embed dynamic bar charts and pie graphs into WordPress content with no coding skills required, the easiest way to do this is to use a plugin.

Fortunately, there is a WordPress plugin that is simple to install, easy-to-use and allows you to not only create eye-catching and dynamic charts and graphs, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with updatable content.

Visualizer

Visualizer URL

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

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Visualizer Description

Visualizer is an easy-to-use and powerful plugin for WordPress that lets you create, manage and insert dynamic 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 are required.

The plugin also contains 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 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 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 visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile device browsers without requiring the installation of additional software.

How To Install WordPress Visualizer

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

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

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

Click OK to continue …

Activate the plugin after installation is successful …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins page …

After the plugin has been activated, click on Library …

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

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

After installing the plugin, the library contains no charts.

The next step is to add add charts and graphs to your plugin library.

How To Configure The Plugin

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

A page will load on your browser displaying all of the built-in types of graphs available.

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

The graph/chart type will open up in a lightbox.

The next step is to upload a CSV file with your data …

When creating your CSV data file, ensure that:

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

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

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

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

The plugin imports the data from the CSV file and displays 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, go here:

• How To Populate Data Using Google Spreadsheet

After importing the data, check 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 click ‘Next‘ …

Depending on the chart or graph type selected, the plugin will display a number of 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 various 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 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’re happy with the look of your chart or graph, click Create Chart …

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

Note that each visual element is given a unique ID displayed as a shortcode. As you will see in just a moment, this allows you to insert graphs and charts into your WordPress posts and pages easily and quickly …

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

After adding a new item to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit it, duplicate it, or delete it …

Visualizer Usage

After creating a new graph or chart and adding it to Visualizer, adding it to a post is really 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‘ …

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

This will add a shortcode for the element into your content …

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

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

Your visual element will show up in the location where you’ve inserted the shortcode …

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

As you can see, WordPress Visualizer allows you to add and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can change your data and the changes will automatically be reflected throughout your website. This makes managing interactive graph information in WordPress really efficient.

The developers of this plugin have created a series of step-by-step tutorials you can refer to to learn how to edit, customize and use Visualizer.

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

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

Congratulations! Now you know how to easily add great-looking and mobile-responsive pie charts and graphs to WordPress.

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