How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

You’ve heard the saying “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This is certainly true when you’re presenting and explaining complex information.

Using graphs and charts is great for breaking up content with too much text, and making statistical data a whole lot simpler to digest.

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

Charts and graphs help you present complex data so people can more easily understand it!

Need to add charts or graphs to WordPress? This tutorial shows you how to use WordPress Visualizer – an easy-to-use and powerful WP plugin that allows you to create, manage and embed appealing and mobile-responsive charts into your WordPress posts and pages that:

• Your visitors can engage with
• Lets you add chart or graph data from your hard drive or an online data source
• Will resize dynamically for mobile browsing

If you are displaying visual data like pie charts, comparison data or trending graphs which contain information that is not going to change (e.g. historical data), a simple method you can use to add your information is to create your graphs or charts using a desktop application, convert these into .jpg and .png files and then simply add your image files to your pages or posts.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

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

Fortunately, there is a free plugin for WordPress sites that is simple to install, easy-to-use and allows you to not only create great-looking and interactive charts and graphs, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with updateable information.

Visualizer

Plugin URL

You can install the plugin inside your WP dashboard (explained a little further below), or download WP Visualizer from the link below:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Visualizer Description

The WP Visualizer plugin is a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that allows you to create, manage and embed eye-catching and dynamic graphs 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 additional addons are needed.

WordPress Visualizer 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. Several options are available for each chart that allow you to 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 visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile browsers without having to install additional plugins.

How To Install The Plugin

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

In the Add Plugins page type search for “visualizer” and click enter …

Locate Visualizer 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 …

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 the main menu …

This brings up the plugin’s Visualizer Library screen …

When you first install the plugin, the library contains no charts.

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

Plugin Configuration

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

A visual gallery displaying all of the default kinds of charts and graphs available will load on your screen.

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

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

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

When creating your CSV data file, ensure that:

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

The screenshot below shows how to format your data as per the above requirements …

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

Once you have completed this step, 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 from your computer select ‘From Computer‘ …

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

The plugin imports your data from the CSV file and displays 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, see the article below:

• 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 new data file containing the correct data), and then click ‘Next‘ …

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

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

For example, the pie chart offers many configurable options, including:

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

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

Note that each new element is given a unique ID displayed as a shortcode. As you will see shortly, this allows you to embed charts and graphs into your WordPress posts and pages easily …

Charts and graphs 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 its details, duplicate it, or trash it …

Plugin Usage

After creating a new graph or chart and adding it to the Visualizer Library, adding it to a post or page is quite 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 Add Media …

Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …

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

This inserts a shortcode into your content …

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

After publishing your post/page, click ‘View post’ to see it …

You will see the graph in the location you specified …

As mentioned previously, the plugin also displays responsive graphs and charts for mobile browsing …

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 site. This is great if you’re working with interactive chart information 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 the Visualizer plugin for WordPress.

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

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

Congratulations! Now you know how to add eye-catching and interactive charts and graphs to WordPress with WordPress Visualizer plugin.

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