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 or explaining data.

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

You can present data using tables, but if you want your audience to try and make sense of complex information with numbers, percentages or relationships easily, then graphs and charts let you present data in an intelligent and meaningful manner that can be quickly understood.

Charts and graphs help explain complex information so your audience can more easily understand it!

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

• Your web visitors can engage with
• Allows you to add graph or chart data from your computer or a web-based source of data
• Dynamically resizes for mobile devices

If you are displaying 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 graphs or charts using an image editing application, convert these into .jpg or .png images and then simply add your image files to your page or post.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to embed dynamic bars and pie graphs into WordPress 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 stunning and mobile-responsive charts and graphs, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with updateable information.

Visualizer – WordPress Plugin

Plugin URL

You can install the plugin in your WordPress dashboard (we will explain how to do this a little further below), or access and download Visualizer from the link below:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Visualizer Plugin Description

WordPress Visualizer is an easy-to-use and powerful plugin for WordPress that lets you create, manage and insert great-looking charts into your WordPress posts and pages in a few simple steps.

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 components are needed.

The plugin also contains a variety of charts 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 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 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 web browsers without requiring the installation of additional software.

Plugin Installation

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

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

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

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 from your dashboard menu …

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

After installing the plugin, the library will contain no charts.

Your next step is to add add charts and graphs to the plugin library.

Visualizer Configuration

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

You will be presented with all of the default types of charts available.

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 your data …

When creating your CSV data file, ensure that:

• The first row includes the column headings.
• The second row includes the series type (e.g. string, date, etc.)

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

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

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

The plugin imports the data from the CSV file and displays it using the graph/chart type you have 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, 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 data file with the right data), and then click ‘Next‘ …

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

The plugin gives you full control of your chart or graph, and updates your display in real time …

For example, the pie chart offers many configurable options, such as:

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

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

Note that every new element is given a unique ID displayed in a shortcode. As you will see in just a moment, this lets you embed charts and graphs into your WordPress pages and posts quickly and easily …

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

After adding a graph or chart to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit it, duplicate it, or delete it …

Visualizer Usage

After you have created a element and added it to the Library, adding it to pages or posts is really 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‘ …

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

This will add a shortcode into your content …

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

Once your page has been updated, click ‘View post’ to see the results …

Your graph or chart will display in the content …

As mentioned earlier, Visualizer also displays responsive charts for mobile browsers …

As you can see, Visualizer allows you to insert and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can edit your data and your changes will automatically be reflected throughout your website. This makes working with interactive chart information in WordPress really efficient.

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

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

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

Congratulations! Now you know how to easily create eye-catching and dynamic bar charts and graphs in WordPress with WP Visualizer.

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