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 trying to present and explain complex information.

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

You can use tables to present information, but if you want your audience to try and interpret complex information with figures, percentages and relationships easily, then graphs and charts let you present your data in a meaningful and intelligent way that can be quickly and easily understood.

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

Need to add charts or graphs to WordPress? This tutorial shows you how to use WP Visualizer – an easy-to-use and powerful WordPress plugin that allows you to create, manage and insert colorful and dynamic charts into your WordPress posts and pages in just a few mouse clicks that:

• Your visitors can interact with
• Lets you add graph or chart data from your computer or an online source of data
• Will resize dynamically for mobile browsers

If you plan to display visual data like bar charts, comparison charts or trending graphs which contain information that is not going to change (e.g. historical data), a simple method you can use to add this information is to create the charts or graphs using an image editing application, convert these into images and then simply insert the images into your pages or posts.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

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

Visualizer – WP Plugin

Plugin URL

You can install the plugin in your WP dashboard (see a little further down the page), or download Visualizer from the link below:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Visualizer Description

WordPress Visualizer is a simple, easy to use and powerful WP plugin that lets you create, manage and embed great-looking charts and graphs into your WordPress posts and pages in a few mouse clicks.

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 addons are required.

Visualizer also provides 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 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 allow you to 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 blog or site visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile web browsers without having to install extra plugins.

Plugin Installation

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

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

Locate Visualizer in the search results screen 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 also get to the plugin’s ‘library’ screen by choosing Media > Visualizer Library in your main menu …

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

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

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

How To Configure The Visualizer Plugin

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

A visual gallery displaying all of the types of graphs available will come up 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 open up in a lightbox.

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

When creating your CSV data file, ensure that:

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

The screenshot below shows how to format your data as per the above requirements …

If you are not sure how to format your data CSV, just use the sample 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 a CSV file and data from your computer select ‘From Computer‘ …

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

The plugin imports your data and displays it using the graph/chart type selected …

Upload CSV File From The Web

To learn 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 your information is correct (if not, click on the ‘Back’ button and reupload a data file with the correct data), and then click ‘Next‘ …

Depending on the chart or graph type you’ve selected, the plugin displays various customization options and 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 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 new graph or chart will now be added to the Visualizer ‘Library’ …

Note that every element is given a unique ID displayed in a shortcode. As you will see in just a moment, this allows you to easily embed charts and graphs into your content …

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

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

Visualizer Usage

After creating a chart or graph and adding it to the Visualizer Library, it’s very 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 your content and click on the ‘Add Media‘ button …

Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …

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

This will add a shortcode into your content …

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

Once the post/page has been published, click ‘View post’ to see the result …

Your post or page will display your visual element in your content …

As mentioned previously, the plugin also displays responsive graphs for mobile browsers …

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 wherever you have inserted your charts, graphs, comparison bars , etc. in your website. This is great if you’re managing interactive chart information in WordPress.

The plugin developers have created a number of step-by-step tutorials you can use to learn how to edit, customize and use WordPress 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 easily insert great-looking bar charts and graphs into your WordPress posts.

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