How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress
You’ve heard the old adage “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This is certainly true when you’re trying to present and explain complex information.
Charts and graphs help to make statistical data and information easier to grasp.
You can present data using tables, but if you want your audience to try and make sense of complex information with numbers, percentages and relationships easily, then charts and graphs let you present your data in an intelligent and meaningful manner that can be quickly processed.
Graphs and charts help present complex data so people can more easily interpret it!
Need to add charts or graphs to WordPress? This tutorial shows you how to use WordPress Visualizer – an easy-to-use and powerful plugin that lets you create, manage and insert colorful and interactive graphs and charts into your WordPress posts and pages that:
- Your visitors can engage with
- Lets you upload chart or graph data from your hard drive or a web-based source of data
- Is fully responsive for mobile devices
If you plan to display visual data like pie charts, comparison charts 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 and png images and then simply add the files and an image to your web content.
Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins
If you want to create dynamic bars and pie graphs in WordPress pages and posts 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 great-looking and mobile-responsive graphs and charts, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with updatable data.
Visualizer Plugin For WordPress
Visualizer URL
You can install the plugin in your WP dashboard (see a little 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
WordPress Visualizer is a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that lets you create, manage and embed appealing graphs and charts into your WordPress posts and pages with 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 comes with 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
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 site’s design. A number of options are available for each chart that let you 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 visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile web browsers without requiring the installation of any additional plugins.
How To Install Visualizer
Inside your WP dashboard, select Plugins > Add New from the main menu …
In the Add Plugins screen type in search for “visualizer” and click enter …
Locate the entry in the search results section and click Install Now …
Click OK to continue …
Activate the plugin after successfully installing it …
You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins page …
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 main menu …
This takes you to the plugin’s Visualizer Library settings …
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 plan to publish to your pages and posts.
Visualizer Configuration
To add a new graph or chart to the plugin’s library, click on ‘Add New’ …
An image gallery displaying all of the default kinds 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 graph/chart type will pop up in a lightbox.
The next step is to upload a CSV file containing your data …
When creating your CSV data file, ensure that:
- Your first row includes the column headings.
- Your second row includes the series type (e.g. string, datetime, etc.)
The screenshot below shows how to format your data as per the requirements above …
If you are unsure about how to format your CSV file, simply refer to the sample spreadsheet that comes with the plugin.
Next, select your 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‘ …
Use the browser to locate and select your file and click on ‘Open‘ …
The plugin will import the data and display it using the graph/chart type selected …
Upload CSV File From The Web
For a step-by-step tutorial that shows you how to create, save and publish data to a Visualizer chart or graph using Google Spreadsheet, see the article below:
After importing your data, make sure 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 number of customization settings and options …
The WordPress Visualizer plugin gives you full control of your chart or graph, and updates your display in real time …
For example, the pie chart offers various configurable options, including:
- 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 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 are satisfied with the look of your graph or chart, click on the ‘Create Chart’ button …
Your graph or chart will now be added to the Visualizer ‘Library’ …
Note that new elements are given a unique ID displayed in a shortcode. As you will see in just a moment, this lets you easily insert graphs and charts into your content …
Charts and graphs added to the Visualizer Library can easily be accessed by their type …
After a graph or chart has been added to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit its details, clone it, or trash it …
Plugin Usage
Once you’ve created a new chart or graph and added it to Visualizer, adding it to pages and posts is really very 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‘ …
Find the graph or chart to be added to your content and click on the “insert” icon …
This inserts a shortcode for the element into your content …
Once you have finished adding the item, click on Publish to publish (or update) your content …
After your post/page has been published, click ‘View post’ to see the end result …
You will see your graph or chart in the location you specified …
As mentioned earlier, the plugin also displays responsive elements for mobile browsing …
As you can see, WordPress 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 website. This makes managing interactive chart data in WordPress really easy.
The developers of this plugin have created a number of tutorials you can refer to to learn how to edit, customize and use Visualizer.
For additional tutorials on editing, cloning, deleting and adding data to your charts, visit the site below:
Congratulations! Now you know how to insert great-looking and mobile-responsive charts and graphs into WordPress.
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