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 or explaining complex information.

Using graphs and charts is great for breaking up long text passages, and making technical or statistical data simpler to digest.

You can present data with tables, but if you want people to try and make sense of complex information with numbers, percentages and relationships quickly, then graphs and charts allow you to present information in an intelligent and meaningful manner that can be quickly and easily understood.

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

If you need to learn how to display dynamic visual content on your WordPress site like graphs and charts, this step-by-step tutorial will show you how to create and add colourful and updatable charts and graphs to WordPress that:

• Your site visitors can engage with
• Allows you to add chart or graph data from your hard drive or a web-based source of data
• Is responsive for mobile devices

If you plan to display visual data like pie charts, comparison bars or trending graphs that contain static information (e.g. historical data), an easier way to add the data is to create your graphs or charts using a desktop application, convert these into jpg or png images and then simply add the image files to your post or page.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to easily create dynamic bar charts and pie charts in WordPress content with no coding skills required, the easiest way to do this is to use a plugin.

Fortunately, there is a great free WordPress plugin 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 updatable data.

WordPress Plugin: Visualizer

Visualizer URL

You can install the plugin in your WP dashboard (explained further below), or download WordPress Visualizer the WP plugin directory using the link below:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Plugin Description

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

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 components are required.

Visualizer also contains a variety of built-in 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 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 web design. A number of options are available for each chart that allow you to further 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 browsers without having to install additional software.

How To Install The Visualizer Plugin

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

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

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

Click OK to go ahead …

Activate the plugin after successfully installing it …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins area …

Once the plugin has been activated, click on Library …

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

This brings up the plugin’s Visualizer Library screen …

After installing the plugin, this section will be empty.

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

How To Configure The Visualizer Plugin

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

You will be presented with all the kinds of charts available.

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

Your selected graph/chart type will open 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 contains the column headings.
• Your second row contains the series type (e.g. string, date, etc.)

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

If you are unsure about how to format your data CSV, simply study the sample spreadsheet provided 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 the CSV file from your hard drive select ‘From Computer‘ …

Locate and select your data file and click on ‘Open‘ …

The plugin imports the data from the CSV file and displays it using the graph/chart type you have previously 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, make sure that all of the information is correct (if not, click on the ‘Back’ button and reupload a data file containing the correct data), and then click ‘Next‘ …

Depending on the chart or graph type selected, the plugin will display various customization settings …

Visualizer gives you complete control of your information, and updates your display in real time …

For example, the pie chart offers many 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 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 are happy with the look of your graph or chart, click Create Chart …

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

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

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

After adding an item to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit its details, clone it, or delete it …

Visualizer Usage

After creating a new chart or graph and adding it to the Library, it’s really simple to add it to posts and pages.

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 you want to add to your content and click on the “insert” icon …

This inserts a shortcode into your content …

After you have added the item, click on Publish to publish (or update) your post or page …

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

The visual element will appear in the content …

As mentioned earlier, Visualizer also displays responsive visual elements for viewing on mobile devices …

As you can see, WordPress Visualizer lets you add 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 makes managing dynamic graph information in WordPress very efficient.

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

For 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 insert beautiful bar charts and graphs into your WordPress content with WordPress Visualizer plugin.

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