How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

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

Using graphs and charts is a great way to make statistical data more easily digestible.

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

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

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

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

If you plan to display visual data like bar charts, comparison charts or trending graphs containing information that is not going to change (e.g. historical data), an easier way to present the information is to create the charts or graphs using a desktop application, convert these into images and then simply add your image to your page or post.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to insert interactive bar charts and pie charts into your 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 that is simple to install, easy-to-use and allows you to not only create beautiful and dynamic graphs and charts, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with updatable information.

WordPress Plugin: Visualizer

Plugin URL

You can install the plugin in your WordPress dashboard (see a little further down the page), or download the Visualizer plugin the WordPress plugin directory 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 embed colorful graphs and charts into your WordPress posts and pages with a few mouse clicks.

The plugin 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.

The plugin also contains 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 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 web design. A number of 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 web visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile devices without having to install any additional software.

Plugin Installation

Inside your WP administration area, select Plugins > Add New from the dashboard menu …

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

Locate the plugin in the search results section and click the “Install Now” button …

Click OK to continue …

Activate the plugin …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins section …

After your plugin has been activated, click on Library …

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

This takes you to the plugin’s Visualizer Library page …

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

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

How To Configure Visualizer

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

An image gallery displaying all of the default types of charts and graphs available will come up on your screen.

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

The 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:

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

The screenshot below shows how to format your data as required …

If you are not sure how to format your CSV file, simply use the sample CSV file 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 and data from your hard drive select ‘From Computer‘ …

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

The plugin imports your data from the CSV file and displays it using the graph/chart type selected …

Upload CSV File From The Web

For a 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, make sure that all of the information is correct (if not, click on the ‘Back’ button and reupload a new data file containing the right data), and click ‘Next‘ …

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

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

For example, the pie chart offers many 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 how your chart or graph looks, click on the ‘Create Chart’ button …

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

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

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

After an element has been added to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit its details, clone it, or trash it …

Visualizer Usage

After you’ve created a new element and added it to the Visualizer Library, adding it to your content is really 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 graph or chart you want to add to your content and click the “insert” icon …

This adds a shortcode for the element into your content …

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

After updating the page, click ‘View post’ to see the results …

You will see the chart or graph in the location where you have added the shortcode …

As mentioned previously, Visualizer also displays responsive graphs and charts for mobile viewers …

As you can see, WordPress Visualizer lets you add and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can edit your data and your changes will automatically be reflected wherever you have inserted your charts, graphs, comparison bars , etc. in your website. This makes adding interactive graph information in WordPress very efficient.

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

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

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

Congratulations! Now you know how to insert beautiful and interactive pie charts and graphs into your WordPress posts and pages.

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