How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

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

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

You can present data using tables, but if you want your audience to try and interpret complex information with numbers, trends or relationships easily, then graphs and charts are perfect for helping them interpret the data.

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

Need to add charts or graphs to your WordPress content? This tutorial shows you how to use WordPress Visualizer – an easy-to-use and powerful WP plugin that allows you to create, manage and insert dynamic graphs and charts into your WordPress posts and pages that:

• Your visitors can engage with
• Allows you to upload data from your computer or an online data source
• Resizes dynamically for mobile screens

If you plan to display visual data like bar charts, comparison graphs or trending graphs containing information that is not going to change (e.g. historical data), an easier way to add this information is to create your charts or graphs using an image editing application, convert these into jpg or png images and then simply add your images to your pages or posts.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to add interactive bar charts and pie charts to 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 users that is simple to install, easy-to-use and allows you to not only create colorful and dynamic charts and graphs, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with updateable information.

Visualizer – WordPress Plugin

Visualizer URL

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

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Plugin Description

Visualizer is a simple, easy to use and powerful WordPress plugin that lets you create, manage and insert colorful charts into your WordPress posts and pages with 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 needed.

The plugin also comes with a variety of charts 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 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. Various 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 site visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile web browsers without having to install any extra software.

Plugin Installation

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

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

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

Click OK to go ahead …

Activate the plugin after installation is successful …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins area …

After your plugin has been activated, click on Library …

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

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

When you first install the plugin, the library contains 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 Plugin Configuration

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

You will be presented with all of the default types of graphs and charts available.

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

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

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

When creating your CSV data file, make sure that:

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

The screenshot below shows how to format your data …

If you are not sure how to format your CSV file, simply use the sample spreadsheet provided 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 your CSV file from your computer select ‘From Computer‘ …

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

The plugin will now import the data from the CSV file and display it using the graph/chart type you have 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, 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 then click ‘Next‘ …

Depending on the chart or graph type you’ve chosen, the plugin will display a number of customization settings …

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, 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 look of your graph or chart, click Create Chart …

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

Note that every element is given a unique ID displayed in a shortcode. As you will see shortly, this allows you to add charts and graphs to your WordPress content very easily …

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

After adding a graph or chart to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit it, clone it, or trash it …

Visualizer Usage

Once you’ve created a chart or graph and added it to Visualizer, adding it to your content 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 the ‘Add Media‘ button …

Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …

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

This adds a shortcode for the element into your content …

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

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

Your page or post displays the element in the location you specified …

As mentioned previously, Visualizer also displays responsive charts and graphs for mobile devices …

As you can see, WordPress Visualizer lets you add and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can change your data and your changes will automatically be reflected wherever you have inserted your charts, graphs, comparison bars , etc. in your site. This is a real time-saving feature of the plugin if you’re managing dynamic graph data 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 WordPress Visualizer.

For 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 easily insert stunning and dynamic pie charts and graphs into your WordPress posts.

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