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 presenting or explaining complex information.

Using graphs and charts is great for breaking up long passage of text, and making technical data much easier to grasp.

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

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

Need to add charts and graphs to your WordPress pages and posts? This step-by-step tutorial shows you how to use WordPress Visualizer – a simple, easy to use and powerful WordPress plugin that allows you to create, manage and insert beautiful and dynamic charts and graphs into your WordPress posts and pages that:

• Your site visitors can interact with
• Allows you to add data from your computer or a web-based source of data
• Resizes dynamically for mobile browsing

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

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to easily create interactive bars and graphs in 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 that is simple to install, easy-to-use and allows you to not only create attractive and interactive charts and graphs, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with updatable content.

WordPress Plugin: Visualizer

Visualizer URL

You can install the plugin from your WP dashboard (see further below), or download the WP Visualizer plugin the WordPress plugin directory using the link below:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Visualizer Description

WordPress Visualizer is a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that lets you create, manage and embed colorful and interactive graphs and charts into your WordPress posts and pages in 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 add-ons are needed.

WordPress Visualizer also contains a variety of built-in 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 the look and feel of your website. A number of options are available for each chart that let you 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 device browsers without having to install additional plugins.

Plugin Installation

Inside your WP administration area, select Plugins > Add New from the main admin menu …

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

Locate the entry in the search results screen and click Install Now …

Click OK to continue …

Activate the plugin after installing it …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins page …

After the plugin has been activated, click on Library …

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

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

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

The next step is to add add charts and graphs to your library.

Plugin Configuration

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

A visual gallery displaying all of the kinds of charts and graphs available will load on your screen.

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

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

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

When creating your CSV data file, make sure that:

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

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

If you are unsure about how to format your CSV file, simply study the sample CSV file provided 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 and data from your hard drive select ‘From Computer‘ …

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

The plugin imports the data and displays it using the graph/chart type 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 the information is correct (if not, click on the ‘Back’ button and reupload a data file containing the correct data), and click ‘Next‘ …

Depending on the chart or graph type you have selected, the plugin will display various customization settings …

The WordPress Visualizer 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, such as:

• 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’re satisfied with how your graph or chart looks, click Create Chart …

The chart or graph will be added to your ‘Visualizer Library’ section …

Note that new visual elements are given a unique ID displayed as a shortcode. As you will see shortly, this allows you to insert graphs and charts into your posts quickly …

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

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

Visualizer Usage

After you’ve created a element and added it to the Library, it’s easy to add it to your pages and posts.

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 Add Media …

Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …

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

This adds a shortcode into your content …

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

Once the page has been updated, click ‘View post’ to see the end result …

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

As mentioned earlier, Visualizer also displays responsive elements for viewing on mobile devices …

As you can see, WordPress Visualizer lets you add and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can update your data and your changes will automatically be reflected throughout your website. This makes managing interactive graph data in WordPress very easy.

The plugin developers have created a series of tutorials you can refer to for ways to edit, customize and use the Visualizer plugin for WordPress.

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

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

Congratulations! Now you know how to create attractive and dynamic pie charts and graphs in WordPress with WordPress Visualizer plugin.

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