How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

You’ve heard the saying “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This is certainly true when you’re trying to present or explain data.

Graphs and charts can help to break up long text passages, and make statistical data more easily digestible.

You can use tables to present information, but if you want people to try and interpret complex information with figures, trends or comparisons easily, then charts and graphs let you present data in an intelligent and meaningful manner that can be quickly and easily understood.

Graphs and charts help you explain complex information so people can more easily understand it!

Need to add charts and graphs to WordPress? This tutorial shows you how to use WordPress Visualizer – an easy-to-use and powerful WP plugin that allows you to create, manage and embed interactive charts into your WordPress posts and pages in a few mouse clicks that:

• Your web visitors can engage with
• Lets you upload data from your hard drive or an online data source
• Will resize dynamically for mobile browsers

If you are displaying visual data like bar charts, comparison data or trending graphs that contain static information (e.g. historical data), a simple method you can use is to create the charts or graphs using a desktop application, convert these into jpg and png files and then simply add your image to your site content.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to create interactive bars and pie graphs in your WordPress posts and pages with no coding skills required, the easiest way to do this is to use a plugin.

Fortunately, there is a WordPress plugin that is simple to install, easy-to-use and allows you to not only create appealing and interactive charts and graphs, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with updateable data.

WordPress Plugin: Visualizer

Plugin URL

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

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Visualizer Plugin Description

Visualizer is an easy-to-use and powerful WP plugin that allows you to create, manage and embed attractive and dynamic charts and graphs into your WordPress posts and pages with 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 plugins are needed.

The plugin 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

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 your web design. Several options are available for each chart that allow you to further 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 visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile device browsers without requiring the installation of any additional plugins.

Plugin Installation

From your WP administration area, select Plugins > Add New from the main sidebar menu …

In the Add Plugins page type search for “visualizer” and hit enter …

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

Click OK to proceed …

Activate the plugin …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins page …

Once your plugin has been activated, click on Library …

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

This brings up the plugin’s Visualizer Library options …

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

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

How To Configure The Visualizer Plugin

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

An image gallery displaying all of the kinds of charts available will come up on your screen.

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

The graph/chart type will pop up in a lightbox.

The next step is to upload a CSV file containing your data …

When creating your CSV data file, make sure that:

• Your first row contains the column headings.
• The second row includes the series type (e.g. boolean, timeofday, 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, just download the sample spreadsheet that comes with the plugin.

Once you have created your CSV file, 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 computer select ‘From Computer‘ …

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

The plugin imports your data from the CSV file and displays it using the graph/chart type you have previously 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 your data, make sure that all of your information is correct (if not, click on the ‘Back’ button and reupload a data file with the right data), and click ‘Next‘ …

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

The plugin gives you complete control of your information, and updates your display in real time …

For example, the pie chart offers many configurable options, including:

• 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 are happy with the way your graph or chart looks, click Create Chart …

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

Note that each new element is given a unique ID displayed in a shortcode. As you will see very soon, this lets you easily embed graphs and charts into your content …

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

After a graph or chart has been added to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit its details, duplicate it, or trash it …

Plugin Usage

After creating a element and adding it to the Visualizer Library, it’s very easy to insert it into a page.

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‘ …

Find the chart or graph you want to add to your content and click the “insert” icon …

This will add a shortcode for the element into your content …

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

After updating your post/page, click ‘View post’ to see it …

You will see the item in where you have inserted the shortcode …

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

As you can see, Visualizer lets you insert and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can update your data and your changes will automatically be reflected wherever you have inserted your charts, graphs, comparison bars , etc. in your site. This is one of the great benefits of using the Visualizer plugin if you’re adding interactive chart data in WordPress.

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

For additional tutorials on editing, cloning, deleting and adding data to your charts, refer to the website below:

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

Congratulations! Now you know how to insert eye-catching and mobile-responsive pie charts and graphs into your WordPress pages and posts.

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