How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

You’ve no doubt heard the saying “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This is certainly true when you are trying to present or explain data.

Using graphs and charts is a great way to make data a lot easier to understand.

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

Charts and graphs help you explain complex information so your audience 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 plugin that allows you to create, manage and embed colorful and mobile-responsive charts into your WordPress posts and pages with a few simple steps that:

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

If you plan to display visual data like bar charts, comparison graphs or trending graphs that contain static information (e.g. historical data), an easier option is to create your graphs or charts using an image editing application, convert these into .jpg or .png files and then simply insert your image files into your web content.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to add interactive bars and graphs to WordPress with no coding skills required, the easiest way to do this is to use a plugin.

Fortunately, there is a great plugin for WordPress users that is simple to install, easy-to-use and allows you to not only create beautiful and mobile-responsive charts and graphs, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with dynamic content.

Visualizer – WordPress Plugin

Visualizer URL

You can install the plugin in your WordPress dashboard (see further below), or access and download WordPress Visualizer from the link below:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Visualizer Plugin Description

The Visualizer plugin is a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that lets you create, manage and embed stunning and mobile-responsive graphs and charts into your WordPress posts and pages with just a few mouse clicks.

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 addons are needed.

The plugin also provides 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 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 site’s design. Various options are available for each chart that let you further 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 site visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile device browsers without requiring the installation of any extra software.

Plugin Installation

From your WordPress admin area, select Plugins > Add New from the main admin menu …

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

Locate the item in the search results area and click Install Now …

Click OK to proceed …

Activate the plugin after installation is successful …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins area …

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 settings …

When you first install the plugin, the library section will be empty.

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

Plugin Configuration

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

A page will load on your screen with all of the 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 lightbox.

The next step is to upload a CSV file with all the data you want your chart or graph to be populated with …

When creating your CSV data file, ensure that:

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

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

If you are not sure how to format your CSV file, just use the sample supplied with the plugin.

Once you have completed this step, select your data source (‘From Computer’ or ‘From Web’) in the ‘Upload CSV File’ section.

Upload CSV File From Computer

To upload the CSV file from your computer select ‘From Computer‘ …

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

The plugin imports the data from the CSV file and displays 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, go here:

• 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 new data file with the correct data), and click ‘Next‘ …

Depending on the chart or graph type you’ve selected, the plugin will display various customization options …

The plugin gives you full control over 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 the look of your graph or chart, click Create Chart …

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

Note that each element is given a unique ID displayed as a shortcode. As you will see in a moment, this allows you to add graphs and charts to your WordPress pages quickly …

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

After adding an element to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit it, clone it, or delete it …

Plugin Usage

After creating a element and adding it to the Library, adding it to a page 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 the content and click on the ‘Add Media‘ button …

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 …

After you have added your item, click on Publish to publish (or update) your content …

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

Your page or post displays the element in the location you specified …

As mentioned earlier, the plugin also displays responsive visual elements for mobile browsing …

As you can see, the Visualizer plugin allows you to insert and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can edit your data and the changes will automatically be reflected throughout your website. This makes adding dynamic chart information in WordPress very easy.

The developers of this plugin have created a number of step-by-step tutorials you can refer to for ways 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:

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

Congratulations! Now you know how to create eye-catching and mobile-responsive charts and graphs in WordPress with WordPress Visualizer.

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