How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

You’ve no doubt heard the old saying “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This is certainly true when you are presenting and explaining complex information.

Graphs and charts can help to make technical data more easily digestible.

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

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

Need to add charts and graphs to your WordPress pages? This tutorial shows you how to use WP Visualizer – a simple, easy to use and powerful WordPress plugin that lets you create, manage and insert great-looking graphs into your WordPress posts and pages that:

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

If you are displaying visual data like bar charts, comparison graphs or trending graphs which contain information that is not going to change (e.g. historical data), a simple method you can use to add the information is to create your graphs or charts using a desktop application, convert these into images and then simply add your images to your site content.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to embed dynamic bar charts and graphs into WordPress content with no coding skills required, the easiest way to do this is to use a plugin.

Fortunately, there is a plugin for WordPress 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.

Visualizer Plugin For WordPress

Visualizer URL

You can install the plugin from your WP dashboard (see further down the page), or access and download Visualizer here:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Visualizer Plugin Description

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

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 additional components are needed.

The plugin also contains 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

The plugin 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 the look and feel of your website. Various options are available for each chart that let you 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 web visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile devices without requiring the installation of extra plugins.

Plugin Installation

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

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

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

Click OK to proceed …

Activate the plugin after installing it …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins page …

Once the plugin has been activated, click on Library …

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

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

After installing the plugin, this section will be empty.

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

Visualizer Plugin Configuration

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

An image gallery displaying all of the built-in types of charts available will load on your screen.

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 that contains all the data you would like to populate your chart or graph with …

When creating your CSV data file, ensure that:

• Your first row includes your column headings.
• The second row contains the series type (e.g. string, timeofday, 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 study 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 your CSV file and data from your hard drive select ‘From Computer‘ …

Use the browser to locate and select your file and click on ‘Open‘ …

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

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 your data, make sure that all of the information is correct (if not, click on the ‘Back’ button and reupload a data file with the correct data), and then click ‘Next‘ …

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

Visualizer gives you total control of 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’re satisfied with the way your chart or graph looks, click Create Chart …

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

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

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

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

Visualizer Plugin Usage

Once you have created a new element and added it to the Visualizer Library, adding it to posts and pages is really 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 you want to add to your content and click on the “insert” icon …

This adds a shortcode into your content …

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

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

You will see the chart in the location you specified …

As mentioned previously, Visualizer also displays responsive visual elements for mobile screens …

As you can see, 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 website. This makes working with interactive chart information in WordPress very efficient.

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, visit the site below:

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

Congratulations! Now you know how to easily insert colorful and dynamic bar charts and graphs into your WordPress posts with WordPress Visualizer.

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