How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

You’ve heard the old saying “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This is certainly true when you’re presenting and explaining complex information.

Graphs and charts are a great way to make data more easily digestible.

You can present information with tables, but if you want people to try and interpret complex data with numbers, percentages and relationships easily, then charts and graphs let you present your information in a meaningful and intelligent manner that can be easily processed.

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

If you need to learn how to display information visually and dynamically on your WordPress site using graphs and charts, this step-by-step tutorial will show you exactly how to create colourful and interactive graphs and charts to your pages that:

• Your site visitors can interact with
• Allows you to upload data from your hard drive or an online source of data
• Will resize dynamically for viewing on mobile devices

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), an easier way to add the information is to create the charts or graphs using a desktop application, convert these into .jpg or .png files and then simply insert your files and an image into your post or page.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to embed dynamic bar charts and pie charts 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 beautiful and mobile-responsive graphs and charts, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with updatable content.

Visualizer Plugin For WordPress

Plugin URL

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

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Visualizer Plugin Description

The WordPress Visualizer plugin is a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that lets you create, manage and insert dynamic graphs into your WordPress posts and pages in just 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 extra plugins are required.

Visualizer also provides 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

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 your web design. Several options are available for each chart that allow you to fully customize their settings.

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 browsers without requiring the installation of any extra plugins.

How To Install The Plugin

From your WordPress 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 item in the search results section and click the “Install Now” button …

Click OK to proceed …

Activate the plugin after successfully installing it …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins page …

After your plugin has been activated, click on Library …

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

This brings up the plugin’s Visualizer Library page …

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 posts and pages.

How To Configure Visualizer

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

A page will appear on your screen with all of the default kinds of charts and graphs available.

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

The selected 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:

• Your first row contains your column headings.
• The second row includes the series type (e.g. boolean, date, etc.)

The screenshot below shows how to format your data as explained above …

If you are not sure how to format your CSV file, simply use the sample file that comes with the plugin.

Next, 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 from your hard drive select ‘From Computer‘ …

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

The plugin imports your data and displays it using the graph/chart type you have 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, see the article below:

• How To Populate Data Using Google Spreadsheet

After importing the data, make sure that all of your 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’ve chosen, the plugin will display a range of customization options and settings …

The plugin gives you full control of your information, 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 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 how your chart or graph is looking, click Create Chart …

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

Note that each new element is given a unique ID displayed as a shortcode. As you will see very soon, this allows you to embed charts and graphs into your posts and pages quickly …

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

After adding a new element to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit its details, duplicate it, or delete it …

Visualizer Plugin Usage

Once you have created a new element and added it to the Library, adding it to your content 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 the ‘Add Media‘ button …

Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …

Select the graph or chart to be added to your content and click on the “insert” icon …

This inserts a shortcode for the element into your content …

After you have finished adding your shortcode, click on Publish to publish (or update) your page or post …

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

You will see your chart or graph in the location where you placed the shortcode …

As mentioned previously, Visualizer also displays responsive charts for mobile browsing …

As you can see, WordPress Visualizer lets you 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 interactive graph data in WordPress really efficient.

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

For 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 add beautiful and dynamic pie charts and graphs to your WordPress pages with WP Visualizer plugin.

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