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 are presenting or explaining complex data.

Using graphs and charts is a great way to make statistical data and information more easily digestible.

You can present information using tables, but if you want people to try and interpret complex data with numbers, trends and comparisons more easily, then charts and graphs are perfect for helping them visualize your data.

Charts and graphs help you present complex data so your audience can more easily interpret it!

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

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

If you plan to display visual data like bar charts, comparison charts or trending graphs containing static information (e.g. historical data), a simple method you can use is to create your charts or graphs using an image editing application, convert these into images and then simply insert the images into your site content.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to easily 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 great WordPress plugin that is simple to install, easy-to-use and allows you to not only create beautiful and interactive graphs and charts, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with updateable content.

WP Plugin: Visualizer

Visualizer URL

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

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Visualizer Plugin Description

WordPress Visualizer is a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that allows you to create, manage and embed attractive and mobile-responsive 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 additional plugins or add-ons are needed.

WordPress Visualizer also contains a variety of charts 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

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 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 devices without requiring the installation of extra software.

Plugin Installation

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

In the Add Plugins page 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 …

Once your plugin has been activated, click on Library …

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

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

When you first install the plugin, the library contains no charts.

Your next step is to add the charts and graphs to your library that you will want to display in your posts or pages.

How To Configure Visualizer

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

A gallery displaying all of the default kinds of charts available will load on your screen.

Select the type of graph or chart 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 with all the data you would like your chart or graph to be populated with …

When creating your CSV data file, make sure that:

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

The screenshot below shows how to format your data as required …

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

Once you have done this, 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 from your computer select ‘From Computer‘ …

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

The plugin will now import your data from the CSV file and display it using the graph/chart type you have chosen …

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, check that all of your information is correct (if not, click on the ‘Back’ button and reupload a new data file containing the correct data), and then click ‘Next‘ …

Depending on the chart or graph type you have picked, the plugin will display a range of customization options and settings …

Visualizer 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, 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 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 are satisfied with the way your graph or chart is looking, click on the ‘Create Chart’ button …

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

Note that new elements are given a unique ID displayed as a shortcode. As you will see in a moment, this lets you insert graphs and charts into your WordPress pages and posts quickly and easily …

Charts and graphs 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 Usage

After you have created a graph or chart and added it to the Library, adding it to a page or post 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‘ …

Find the element to be added to your content and click on the “insert” icon …

This inserts a shortcode into your content …

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

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

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

As mentioned previously, the plugin also displays responsive charts and graphs for mobile devices …

As you can see, Visualizer lets you add and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can modify your data and the changes will automatically be reflected wherever you have inserted your charts, graphs, comparison bars , etc. in your site. This makes working with dynamic chart information in WordPress really efficient.

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 Visualizer.

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

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

Congratulations! Now you know how to easily insert great-looking and interactive bar charts and graphs into WordPress.

***

***