How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

No doubt you’re familiar with the old adage “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 making statistical data a lot simpler to digest.

You can use tables to present data, but if you want your audience to try and interpret complex information with figures, percentages and comparisons quickly, then charts and graphs are perfect for helping them visualize your information.

Graphs and charts help present complex data so your audience can more easily interpret it!

If you want to learn how to display information visually and dynamically on your WordPress site using graphs and charts, this step-by-step tutorial will show you exactly how to create and add eye-catching and updatable charts to your posts that:

• Your web visitors can engage with
• Lets you add graph or chart data from your computer or an online data source
• Will dynamically resize for mobile viewers

If you are displaying visual data like pie charts, comparison graphs 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 or .png files and then simply add your image files to your site content.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to add dynamic bar charts and pie graphs to your WordPress posts 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 eye-catching and dynamic graphs and charts, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with dynamic data.

Visualizer Plugin For WordPress

Plugin URL

You can install the plugin in your WP dashboard (we will explain how to do this a little further down the page), or download WP Visualizer here:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Plugin Description

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

Visualizer also provides a variety of charts that are optimized to address 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 site’s design. A number of options are available for each chart that allow you to 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 web visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile web browsers without having to install any extra software.

Plugin Installation

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

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

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

Click OK to go ahead …

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 also 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 screen …

When you first install the plugin, the library will contain no charts.

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

Visualizer Configuration

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

You will be presented with all of the built-in types of graphs and charts available.

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

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

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

When creating your CSV data file, ensure that:

• The first row contains 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 per the above requirements …

If you are unsure about how to format your data CSV, simply refer to the sample that comes with the plugin.

Next, 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 data file and click on ‘Open‘ …

The plugin imports your data and displays it using the graph/chart type you have previously chosen …

Upload CSV File From The Web

For a step-by-step tutorial that shows you 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 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 have picked, the plugin displays various customization options and settings …

The WordPress Visualizer plugin gives you total control over your information, and updates your display in real time …

For example, the pie chart offers many 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 are satisfied with the look of your graph or chart, click on the ‘Create Chart’ button …

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

Note that every new element is given a unique ID displayed as a shortcode. As you will see in a moment, this lets you add charts and graphs to your pages and posts very quickly …

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

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

Visualizer Usage

After you’ve created a chart or graph and added it to the Library, it’s easy to insert it into a post or 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 the content and click on Add Media …

Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …

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

This adds a shortcode into your content …

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

After your post/page has been updated, click ‘View post’ to see the result …

You will see the graph or chart in your content …

As mentioned earlier, Visualizer also displays responsive charts and graphs for mobile viewers …

As you can see, WordPress Visualizer 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 wherever you have inserted your charts, graphs, comparison bars , etc. in your website. This makes adding interactive graph information in WordPress very efficient.

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

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

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

Congratulations! Now you know how to add attractive and dynamic pie charts and graphs to your WordPress pages.

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