How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

You’ve no doubt heard the adage “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This is certainly true when you are trying to present and explain complex data.

Using charts and graphs is useful for making technical data more easily digestible.

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

Charts and graphs help you explain complex data so your audience can more easily understand it!

If you need to learn how to display dynamic visual content on your WordPress site like charts and graphs, this tutorial will show you how to create colorful and interactive charts to your WordPress pages that:

• Your web visitors can engage with
• Allows you to add data from your hard drive or a web-based data source
• Dynamically resizes for mobile devices

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

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to easily create dynamic bar charts and 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 free WordPress plugin that is simple to install, easy-to-use and allows you to not only create stunning and dynamic charts and graphs, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with updatable data.

Visualizer – WordPress Plugin

Visualizer Plugin URL

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

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Visualizer Plugin Description

WordPress Visualizer is an easy-to-use and powerful tool that lets you create, manage and insert attractive and interactive charts and graphs into your WordPress posts and pages with a few simple steps.

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 extra plugins or add-ons are required.

WordPress Visualizer also provides a variety of built-in 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

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 the look and feel of your website. Various options are available for each chart that let you 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 site visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile web browsers without requiring the installation of any extra plugins.

How To Install The Visualizer Plugin

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

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

Locate the item in the search results section and click Install Now …

Click OK to proceed …

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 dashboard menu …

This brings up the plugin’s Visualizer Library settings page …

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 plan to display in your pages or posts.

How To Configure Visualizer

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

A gallery displaying all of the different kinds of charts available will come up on your screen.

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

Your selected graph/chart type will open up in a new window.

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

When creating your CSV data file, ensure that:

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

The screenshot below shows how to format your data as explained above …

If you are not sure how to format your CSV file, simply refer to the sample CSV file provided 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 a CSV file from your computer select ‘From Computer‘ …

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

The plugin will import your data and display it using the graph/chart type 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 your data, make sure that all of the information is correct (if not, click on the ‘Back’ button and reupload a data file containing the right data), and click ‘Next‘ …

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

Visualizer gives you total control of your information, and updates your display in real time …

For example, the pie chart offers various 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’re satisfied with how your graph or chart looks, click Create Chart …

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

Note that every element is given a unique ID displayed in a shortcode. As you will see very soon, this allows you to add charts and graphs to your WordPress content quickly …

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

After adding an item to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit it, duplicate it, or delete it …

Visualizer Plugin Usage

After you’ve created a element and added it to the Visualizer Library, adding it to a post is really 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 Add Media …

Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …

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

This inserts a shortcode for the element into your content …

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

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

You will see your graph in the location you specified …

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

As you can see, 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 wherever you have inserted your charts, graphs, comparison bars , etc. in your website. This makes managing dynamic graph data in WordPress really easy.

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

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

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

Congratulations! Now you know how to create stunning and mobile-responsive charts and graphs in WordPress.

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