How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

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

Using graphs and charts is useful for breaking up long chunks of text, and making statistical data and information more easily digestible.

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

Charts and graphs help explain complex information so people can more easily interpret it!

Need to add charts or graphs to WordPress? This 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 insert appealing graphs and charts into your WordPress posts and pages that:

• Your visitors can engage with
• Allows you to add data from your hard drive or a web-based data source
• Is fully responsive for mobile users

If you are displaying visual data like pie charts, comparison bars or trending graphs that contain static information (e.g. historical data), a simple method you can use is to create your charts or graphs using a desktop application, convert these into .jpg or .png files and then simply add the image to your content.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to embed interactive bar charts and pie charts 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 attractive and mobile-responsive graphs and charts, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with dynamic content.

Visualizer

Visualizer Plugin URL

You can install the plugin from your WordPress dashboard (we will show you how to do this further down the page), or access and download the Visualizer plugin from the link below:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Visualizer Description

WP Visualizer is a simple, easy to use and powerful WordPress plugin that allows you to create, manage and insert appealing and interactive graphs and charts into your WordPress posts and pages in a few mouse clicks.

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 extra addons are required.

WordPress 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

WordPress 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 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 web visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile device browsers without requiring the installation of additional plugins.

How To Install The Visualizer Plugin

From your WP dashboard, select Plugins > Add New from the navigation sidebar menu …

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

Locate the plugin in the search results area and click the “Install Now” button …

Click OK to proceed …

Activate the plugin after installation is successful …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins area …

Once your plugin has been activated, click on Library …

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

This brings up the plugin’s Visualizer Library options page …

When you first install the plugin, the library section will be empty.

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

Visualizer Configuration

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

You will see all the kinds of graphs available.

Select the type of chart or graph 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 want your chart or graph to be populated with …

When creating your CSV data file, ensure that:

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

The screenshot below shows how to format your data as explained above …

If you are not sure how to format your CSV file, just use the sample supplied with the plugin.

Once you have created your CSV file, 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 and data from your computer select ‘From Computer‘ …

Use the browser to locate and select your file and click on ‘Open‘ …

The plugin will import your data and display it using the graph/chart type selected …

Upload CSV File From The Web

For a step-by-step tutorial that explains 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 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 a number of customization settings …

The plugin gives you complete control of your chart or graph, 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’re happy with how your graph or chart appears, click on the ‘Create Chart’ button …

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

Note that each element is given a unique ID displayed in a shortcode. As you will see in a moment, this lets you easily embed charts and graphs into your content …

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

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

Plugin Usage

After you’ve created a element and added it to the Visualizer Library, adding it to your content is really very simple.

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 your content and click on Add Media …

Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …

Select the element to be added to your content and click the “insert” icon …

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

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

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

Your graph or chart will show up in where you placed the shortcode …

As mentioned previously, Visualizer also displays responsive charts for viewing on mobile devices …

As you can see, 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 site. This is one of the great benefits of using the Visualizer plugin if you’re working with dynamic chart data in WordPress.

The plugin developers have created a number of step-by-step tutorials you can refer to for ways to edit, customize and use Visualizer.

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

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

Congratulations! Now you know how to easily add beautiful and mobile-responsive charts and graphs to your WordPress pages with WP Visualizer.

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