How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

You’ve no doubt heard the old adage “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This certainly applies when you’re trying to present or explain complex data.

Using charts and graphs can help to make technical data easier to understand.

You can present information using tables, but if you want your audience to try and make sense of complex information with numbers, trends and comparisons quickly, then graphs and charts let you present your data in an intelligent and meaningful manner that can be easily processed.

Graphs and charts help you present complex information so people can more easily interpret it!

If you want to learn how to present information visually and dynamically on your WordPress site using charts and graphs, this tutorial will show you how to create and add appealing and updateable charts and graphs to your WordPress posts that:

• Your site visitors can engage with
• Allows you to add data from your hard drive or a web-based data source
• Will resize dynamically for mobile screens

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 the charts or graphs using an image editing application, convert these into .jpg and .png files and then simply add your files and an image to your posts or pages.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

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

Fortunately, there is a great plugin for WordPress users that is simple to install, easy-to-use and allows you to not only create beautiful and mobile-responsive graphs and charts, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with updatable information.

Visualizer Plugin For WordPress

Visualizer Plugin URL

You can install the plugin inside your WP dashboard (explained further down the page), or access and download WP Visualizer the WordPress free plugin repository using the link below:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Plugin Description

WordPress Visualizer is a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that lets you create, manage and insert appealing and mobile-responsive graphs into your WordPress posts and pages with 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 plugins or add-ons are required.

WordPress Visualizer also provides 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

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 the look and feel of your website. Various options are available for each chart that allow you to further customize their look and feel.

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 any additional software.

Plugin Installation

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

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

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

Click OK to proceed …

Activate the plugin after installing it …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins section …

Once your plugin has been activated, click on Library …

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

This brings up the plugin’s Visualizer Library settings screen …

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 will want to insert into your posts or pages.

Plugin Configuration

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

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

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

The selected graph/chart type will pop up in a new window.

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

When creating your CSV data file, ensure that:

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

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

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

Once you have done this, 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 and data from your computer select ‘From Computer‘ …

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

The plugin will now import the data from the CSV file and display it using the graph/chart type chosen …

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 the information is correct (if not, click on the ‘Back’ button and reupload a new data file containing the correct data), and then click ‘Next‘ …

Depending on the chart or graph type you’ve selected, the plugin displays various customization options and settings …

The plugin gives you total control over your information, and updates your display in real time …

For example, the pie chart offers various configurable options, such as:

• 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 are satisfied with the way your chart or graph is looking, click on the ‘Create Chart’ button …

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

Note that new elements are given a unique ID displayed in a shortcode. As you will see very soon, this lets you easily insert graphs and charts into your content …

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

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

Plugin Usage

After creating a new element and adding it to Visualizer, adding it to a page or post 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 graph or chart to be added to your content and click the “insert” icon …

This inserts a shortcode into your content …

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

Once the page has been updated, click ‘View post’ to see the results …

Your post or page will display the chart in where you placed the shortcode …

As mentioned earlier, the plugin also displays responsive charts and graphs for mobile browsers …

As you can see, WordPress 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 website. This is one of the great benefits of using the Visualizer plugin if you’re adding interactive graph data in WordPress.

The plugin developers 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 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 easily add beautiful and dynamic bar charts and graphs to your WordPress content with WP Visualizer plugin.

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