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 are presenting or explaining data.

Using graphs and charts is great for making data a whole lot simpler to digest.

You can present information using tables, but if you want people to try and interpret complex data with numbers, trends or relationships easily, then graphs and charts allow you to present the data in an intelligent and meaningful manner that can be quickly and easily processed.

Graphs and charts help you present complex data so your audience can more easily understand it!

Need to add charts or graphs to WordPress? This step-by-step tutorial shows you how to use WP Visualizer – a simple, easy to use and powerful WP plugin that lets you create, manage and embed appealing graphs and charts into your WordPress posts and pages that:

• Your site visitors can engage with
• Allows you to upload data from your computer or a web-based source of data
• Will dynamically resize for mobile devices

If you plan to display visual data like pie charts, comparison graphs or trending graphs which contain information that is not going to change (e.g. historical data), an easier way to add your data is to create the charts or graphs using a desktop application, convert these into jpg or png images and then simply add your files and an image to your pages.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to easily create dynamic bar charts and pie graphs in WordPress 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 stunning and mobile-responsive charts and graphs, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with updatable information.

Visualizer Plugin For WordPress

Visualizer URL

You can install the plugin in your WordPress dashboard (explained further below), or access and download WordPress Visualizer from the link below:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Visualizer Description

The Visualizer plugin is a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that lets you create, manage and embed attractive and dynamic graphs into your WordPress posts and pages in just a few simple steps.

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 needed.

The plugin also provides a variety of built-in that are optimized to address all 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 let you 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 site visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile device browsers without having to install 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 search for “visualizer” and hit enter …

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

Click OK to proceed …

Activate the plugin …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins page …

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 dashboard menu …

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

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

Your next step is to add the charts and graphs to your library that you plan to display in your pages and posts.

How To Configure The Visualizer Plugin

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

You will see all of the types of charts and graphs available.

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

Your graph/chart type will open up in a lightbox.

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

When creating your CSV data file, make sure that:

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

The screenshot below shows how to format your data correctly …

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

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

Use the browser to locate and select your file and then 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

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, 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 with the right data), and then click ‘Next‘ …

Depending on the chart or graph type you’ve picked, the plugin displays a range of customization options …

Visualizer 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, 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’re happy with the look of your graph or chart, click on the ‘Create Chart’ button …

Your chart or graph will now be added to the Visualizer ‘Library’ …

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

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

After a new chart or graph has been added to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit it, clone it, or trash it …

Visualizer Plugin Usage

After creating a new element and adding it to Visualizer, it’s quite 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 your content and click on Add Media …

Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …

Find the chart or graph to be inserted into your content and click the “insert” icon …

This inserts a shortcode for the element into your content …

Once you have finished adding your visual element, click on Publish to publish (or update) your content …

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

Your page or post should display the item in your content …

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

As you can see, Visualizer lets you insert and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can change your data and your changes will automatically be reflected throughout your site. This makes adding dynamic graph data in WordPress really easy.

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

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

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

Congratulations! Now you know how to insert colorful bar charts and graphs into WordPress.

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