How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

No doubt you’re familiar with the old adage “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This is certainly true when you are presenting and explaining complex information.

Using charts and graphs is great for breaking up long passage of text, and making data more easily digestible.

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

Graphs and charts help explain complex data so people can more easily interpret it!

If you want to learn how to display information visually and dynamically on your WordPress site like graphs and charts, this step-by-step tutorial will show you how to create attractive and interactive charts and graphs to your WP posts that:

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

If you plan to display visual data like bar charts, comparison graphs or trending graphs containing information that is not going to change (e.g. historical data), a simple method you can use to present this information is to create your charts or graphs using an image editing application, convert these into jpg or png images and then simply add your images to your pages or posts.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to easily create dynamic 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 free plugin for WordPress sites that is simple to install, easy-to-use and allows you to not only create great-looking and interactive graphs and charts, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with dynamic data.

Visualizer

Visualizer Plugin URL

You can install the plugin from your WordPress dashboard (we show you how to do this further below), or download the WP Visualizer plugin here:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Plugin Description

WP Visualizer is an easy-to-use and powerful plugin for WordPress that allows you to create, manage and insert beautiful graphs and charts into your WordPress posts and pages with 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 add-ons are required.

The plugin also comes with a variety of charts optimized for all 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. Several 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 blog or site visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile devices without requiring the installation of extra software.

How To Install The Plugin

From your WordPress admin area, select Plugins > Add New from the main menu …

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

Locate the plugin 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 section …

Once the plugin has been activated, click on Library …

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

This brings up the plugin’s Visualizer Library page …

When you first install the plugin, this section will be empty.

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

How To Configure The Plugin

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

A page will appear in your screen displaying all the different types of graphs and charts available.

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

Your selected graph/chart type will pop up in a lightbox.

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

When creating your CSV data file, ensure that:

• The first row includes the column headings.
• Your second row includes the series type (e.g. number, timeofday, etc.)

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

If you are unsure about how to format your CSV file, simply download the sample that comes with the plugin.

Once you have completed this step, 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 hard drive select ‘From Computer‘ …

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

The plugin will import the data and display it using the graph/chart type you have chosen …

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:

• 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 click ‘Next‘ …

Depending on the chart or graph type you’ve selected, the plugin will display a number of customization settings …

The plugin gives you total control over your chart or graph, 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 chart or graph, click Create Chart …

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

Note that each element is given a unique ID displayed in a shortcode. As you will see shortly, this allows you to easily insert graphs and charts into your content …

Charts and graphs added to the Visualizer Library can easily be accessed by their type …

After adding a new item to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit it, duplicate it, or trash it …

Visualizer Usage

After you’ve created a new element and added it to Visualizer, adding it to pages or posts is 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 your content and click on Add Media …

Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …

Find the chart or graph you want to insert into your content and click on the “insert” icon …

This adds a shortcode for the element into your content …

Once you have finished adding the item, click on Publish to publish (or update) your post or page …

After your post/page has been updated, click ‘View post’ to see the end result …

The item will show in the location you specified …

As mentioned earlier, the plugin also displays responsive visual elements for mobile browsing …

As you can see, the Visualizer plugin lets you add and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can edit your data and the 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 chart data in WordPress.

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

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

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

Congratulations! Now you know how to easily create great-looking and interactive charts and graphs in WordPress.

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