How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

No doubt you’re familiar with the old saying “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This is certainly true when you’re presenting and explaining data.

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

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

Charts and graphs help present 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 WordPress Visualizer – a simple, easy to use and powerful plugin for WordPress that allows you to create, manage and embed colorful charts and graphs into your WordPress posts and pages that:

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

If you plan to display visual data like pie charts, comparison charts or trending graphs that contain static information (e.g. historical data), an easier option is to create the graphs or charts using an image editing application, convert these into images and then simply insert the image into your pages.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to add dynamic bar charts and pie graphs to 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 beautiful and mobile-responsive graphs and charts, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with updatable information.

WordPress Plugin: Visualizer

Visualizer Plugin URL

You can install the plugin inside your WordPress dashboard (explained further down the page), or access and download Visualizer the WP free plugin directory using the link below:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Visualizer Description

Visualizer is a simple, easy to use and powerful WP plugin that allows you to create, manage and insert colorful and interactive charts and graphs into your WordPress posts and pages in 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 plugins are required.

The plugin also provides a variety of built-in 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 a flexible and customizable plugin, 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 blog or site visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile devices without requiring the installation of any extra software.

How To Install The Visualizer Plugin

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

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

Locate the entry in the search results section 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 section …

After your plugin has been activated, click on Library …

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

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

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

The next step is to add the charts and graphs to your library that you will want to display in your content.

How To Configure Visualizer

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

A page will appear on your screen with all of the types of graphs and charts available.

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 new window.

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

When creating your CSV data file, make sure that:

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

The screenshot below shows how to format your data correctly …

If you are unsure about how to format your data CSV, simply study the sample supplied 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 computer select ‘From Computer‘ …

Locate and select your data file and then 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 your data, check that all of your information is correct (if not, click on the ‘Back’ button and reupload a data file with the correct data), and click ‘Next‘ …

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

The plugin gives you complete control of your chart or graph, 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’re happy with the look of your chart or graph, click Create Chart …

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

Note that new elements are given a unique ID displayed as a shortcode. As you will see very soon, this allows you to embed graphs and charts into your content quickly …

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

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

Visualizer Plugin Usage

After you’ve created a new graph or chart and added it to the Library, it’s simple to add it to your content.

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

This will place a shortcode into your content …

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

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

You will see your graph or chart in where you have added the shortcode …

As mentioned earlier, the plugin also displays responsive visual elements for mobile browsing …

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

The plugin developers have created a number of tutorials you can use 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, visit the website below:

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

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

***

***