How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

You’re probably familiar with the saying “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This is certainly true when you are trying to present and explain data.

Charts and graphs can help to make technical or statistical data more easily digestible.

You can present information using tables, but if you want your audience to try and interpret complex data with numbers, trends or comparisons easily, then graphs and charts let you present information in a meaningful and intelligent manner that can be quickly understood.

Charts and graphs help you present complex data so your audience can more easily interpret it!

Need to add charts and graphs to WordPress? This tutorial shows you how to use WP Visualizer – a simple, easy to use and powerful plugin for WordPress that lets you create, manage and insert colorful and dynamic graphs and charts into your WordPress posts and pages with a few mouse clicks that:

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

If you plan to display visual data like pie charts, comparison charts 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 and png images and then simply insert your images into your site content.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

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

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

Visualizer

Visualizer Plugin URL

You can install the plugin inside your WP dashboard (we show you how to do this further below), or access and download the WP Visualizer plugin the WordPress plugin directory using the link below:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Visualizer Description

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

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 add-ons are required.

Visualizer also provides 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 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. Various options are available for each chart that allow you to fully customize their look.

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 having to install any additional software.

How To Install The Plugin

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

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

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

Click OK to go ahead …

Activate the plugin …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins area …

Once the plugin has been activated, click on Library …

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

This brings up the plugin’s Visualizer Library options …

When you first install the plugin, the library will contain no charts.

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

How To Configure The Plugin

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

An image gallery displaying all of the different types of charts and graphs available will come up on your screen.

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

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

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

When creating your CSV data file, ensure that:

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

The screenshot below shows how to format your data …

If you are unsure about how to format your CSV file, simply use the sample file supplied with the plugin.

Once you have done this, select your data source (‘From Computer’ or ‘From Web’) in the ‘Upload CSV File’ section.

Upload CSV File From Computer

To upload a CSV file from your hard drive 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 data file containing the right data), and click ‘Next‘ …

Depending on the chart or graph type you have selected, the plugin displays a range of customization settings and options …

Visualizer gives you complete 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 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 how your chart or graph appears, click Create Chart …

Your 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 in a moment, this lets you embed graphs and charts into your WordPress posts very quickly …

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

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

Plugin Usage

After creating a new element and adding it to Visualizer, it’s simple to add it to pages or posts.

First, create a new post or page (or open an existing one) …

Next, place your mouse cursor where you would like to insert your visual element into the content and click on the ‘Add Media‘ button …

Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …

Select the element to be inserted into your content and click on the “insert” icon …

This adds a shortcode into your content …

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

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

You will see the graph or chart in the content …

As mentioned previously, the plugin also displays responsive visual elements for mobile viewing …

As you can see, Visualizer lets you insert and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can edit your data and the changes will automatically be reflected wherever you have inserted your charts, graphs, comparison bars , etc. in your site. This is a real time-saver if you’re managing interactive chart information in WordPress.

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

For additional 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 create attractive and mobile-responsive charts and graphs in WordPress.

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