How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress
No doubt you’re familiar with the old saying “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This certainly applies when you’re presenting and explaining complex information.
Using charts and graphs is great for making statistical data and information simpler and easier to grasp.
You can present information with tables, but if you want your audience to try and interpret complex information with figures, trends or comparisons easily, then graphs and charts let you present the information in an intelligent and meaningful manner that can be quickly and easily understood.
Graphs and charts help explain complex data so people can more easily interpret it!
Need to add charts or graphs to your WordPress pages and posts? This tutorial shows you how to use WordPress Visualizer – a simple, easy to use and powerful plugin for WordPress that lets you create, manage and insert eye-catching and dynamic charts and graphs into your WordPress posts and pages in a few simple steps that:
- Your web visitors can engage with
- Allows you to upload data from your computer or an online data source
- Will dynamically resize for mobile devices
If you plan to display visual data like pie charts, comparison charts or trending graphs containing static information (e.g. historical data), a simple method you can use is to create your charts or graphs using an image editing application, convert these into images and then simply add your files and an image to your pages.
Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins
If you want to create interactive bars and graphs in WordPress with no coding skills required, the easiest way to do this is to use a plugin.
Fortunately, there is a plugin for WordPress sites that is simple to install, easy-to-use and allows you to not only create stunning and dynamic graphs and charts, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with updateable content.
Visualizer – WordPress Plugin
Plugin URL
You can install the plugin from your WP dashboard (explained a little further down the page), or access and download Visualizer here:
http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer
Visualizer Plugin Description
The WordPress Visualizer plugin is a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that allows you to create, manage and insert interactive graphs into your WordPress posts and pages in 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 additional add-ons are required.
WordPress Visualizer also contains a variety of built-in optimized for 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 the look and feel of your website. Several options are available for each chart that allow you to 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 web browsers without having to install additional plugins.
How To Install WordPress Visualizer
From your WordPress administration area, 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 screen and click the “Install Now” button …
Click OK to go ahead …
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 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 will contain no charts.
The next step is to add the charts and graphs to your library that you will want to insert into your content.
Plugin Configuration
To add a new chart or graph to the library, click on ‘Add New’ …
A page will load in your browser displaying all the different types of graphs available.
Select the type of chart or graph you would like to create and click on the ‘Next’ button …
The selected graph/chart type will open up in a new window.
The next step is to upload a CSV file that contains your data …
When creating your CSV data file, ensure that:
- Your first row contains the column headings.
- The second row contains the series type (e.g. string, date, etc.)
The screenshot below shows how to format your data as required …
If you are unsure about how to format your data CSV, just use the sample provided with the plugin.
Next, 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 and data from your hard drive select ‘From Computer‘ …
Use the browser to locate and select your data file and then click on ‘Open‘ …
The plugin will import your data and display it using the graph/chart type selected …
Upload CSV File From The Web
To learn how to create, save and publish data to a Visualizer chart or graph using Google Spreadsheet, see the article below:
After importing your data, make sure that all of your information is correct (if not, click on the ‘Back’ button and reupload a data file containing the correct data), and click ‘Next‘ …
Depending on the chart or graph type you’ve picked, the plugin displays a number of customization options and settings …
The WordPress Visualizer plugin gives you full control of your information, and updates your display in real time …
For example, the pie chart offers various 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 the 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 how your chart or graph looks, click Create Chart …
The chart or graph will now be added to the Visualizer ‘Library’ …
Note that every element is given a unique ID displayed in a shortcode. As you will see in just a moment, this allows you to easily embed charts and graphs into your content …
Charts and graphs added to the Visualizer Library can be accessed by their type …
After a new element has been added to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit its details, clone it, or trash it …
Visualizer Usage
After you have created a new chart or graph and added it to the Library, adding it to posts and pages 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 the content and click on the ‘Add Media‘ button …
Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …
Find the chart or graph to be inserted into your content and click the “insert” icon …
This will add a shortcode for the element into your content …
After you have added your shortcode, click on Publish to publish (or update) your page or post …
After the post/page has been updated, click ‘View post’ to see the results …
Your post or page should display the visual element in the content …
As mentioned earlier, Visualizer also displays responsive graphs and charts for mobile device browsing …
As you can see, the Visualizer plugin allows you to add and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can update your data and the changes will automatically be reflected wherever you have inserted your charts, graphs, comparison bars , etc. in your site. This makes adding dynamic graph information in WordPress really efficient.
The plugin developers have created a series 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:
Congratulations! Now you know how to easily insert great-looking and dynamic bar charts and graphs into your WordPress posts and pages.
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