How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

You’ve heard the old adage “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This certainly applies when you are trying to present or explain complex information.

Charts and graphs help to make technical or statistical data simpler to digest.

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

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

If you want to learn how to present dynamic visual content on your WordPress site like charts and graphs, this tutorial will show you exactly how to create appealing and interactive charts to your posts that:

• Your visitors can engage with
• Lets you upload data from your hard drive or an online source of data
• Is fully responsive for mobile device 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 your graphs or charts using a desktop application, convert these into .jpg and .png files and then simply insert your image into your posts or pages.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to insert interactive bar charts and graphs into WordPress 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 attractive and mobile-responsive graphs and charts, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with updateable data.

Visualizer

Visualizer Plugin URL

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

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Visualizer Plugin Description

The WP Visualizer plugin is a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that lets you create, manage and insert stunning and interactive graphs into your WordPress posts and pages with 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 addons are required.

The plugin 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

WordPress 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 web design. A number of options are available for each chart that let you further customize their look and feel.

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 web browsers without requiring the installation of any extra plugins.

Plugin Installation

Inside your WordPress dashboard, select Plugins > Add New from the main sidebar menu …

In the Add Plugins page type “visualizer” into the search field and click enter …

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

Click OK to go ahead …

Activate the plugin …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins area …

Once your plugin has been activated, click on Library …

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

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

After installing the plugin, the library contains no charts.

Your next step is to add the charts and graphs to your library that you plan to insert into your posts and pages.

Visualizer Configuration

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

An image gallery displaying all the different types of charts available will load on your screen.

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

The selected 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, ensure that:

• Your first row includes your column headings.
• The second row contains 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 data CSV, just use the sample CSV file that comes with the plugin.

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

Upload CSV File From Computer

To upload your CSV file from your hard drive 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 selected …

Upload CSV File From The Web

For a tutorial that shows you 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 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 displays a number of customization settings and options …

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

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

Note that new elements are given a unique ID displayed in a shortcode. As you will see shortly, this lets you easily embed graphs and charts into your content …

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

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

Visualizer Plugin Usage

After creating a element and adding it to the Visualizer Library, it’s easy to add it to your posts and pages.

First, create a new post or page (or open an existing one) …

Next, place your mouse cursor where you would like to insert your visual element into the content and click on the ‘Add Media‘ button …

Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …

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

This inserts a shortcode for the element into your content …

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

After publishing your post, click ‘View post’ to see the result …

You will see your chart or graph in the location you specified …

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

As you can see, the Visualizer plugin lets you insert and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can modify your data and your changes will automatically be reflected throughout your site. This is a real time-saving feature of the plugin if you’re managing dynamic chart information in WordPress.

The plugin developers have created a number of tutorials you can refer to to learn how to edit, customize and use the plugin.

For tutorials on editing, copying, deleting and adding data to your charts, go to the website below:

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

Congratulations! Now you know how to create appealing and mobile-responsive charts and graphs in WordPress with WP Visualizer plugin.

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