How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

You’re probably familiar with the adage “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This is certainly true when you’re presenting or explaining complex data.

Using graphs and charts is useful for breaking up long text passages, and making statistical data easier to understand.

You can present data using tables, but if you want your audience to try and make sense of complex data with numbers, percentages and relationships more easily, then charts and graphs allow you to present data in a meaningful and intelligent manner that can be quickly processed.

Charts and graphs help you present complex information so people can more easily interpret it!

Need to add charts and graphs to WordPress? This tutorial shows you how to use WordPress Visualizer – a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that allows you to create, manage and insert stunning and dynamic graphs into your WordPress posts and pages with just a few simple steps that:

• Your site visitors can engage with
• Allows you to upload data from your hard drive or an online source of data
• Is responsive for mobile screens

If you are displaying visual data like bar charts, comparison data or trending graphs containing static information (e.g. historical data), a simple method you can use to display your data is to create the graphs or charts using a desktop application, convert these into jpg or png images and then simply add your image files to your posts or pages.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to embed dynamic bar charts and graphs into WordPress content with no coding skills required, the easiest way to do this is to use a plugin.

Fortunately, there is a free plugin for WordPress sites that is simple to install, easy-to-use and allows you to not only create great-looking and interactive charts and graphs, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with updateable content.

Visualizer – WordPress Plugin

Plugin URL

You can install the plugin inside your WP dashboard (we will explain how to do this further below), or download the WP Visualizer plugin the WordPress free plugin repository using the link below:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Plugin Description

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

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 required.

Visualizer also contains 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 web design. Various 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 visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile devices without requiring the installation of any additional software.

How To Install Visualizer

Inside your WordPress dashboard, select Plugins > Add New from the dashboard menu …

In the Add Plugins screen type in search for “visualizer” and click enter …

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

Click OK to continue …

Activate the plugin …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins page …

Once the plugin has been activated, click on Library …

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

This brings up the plugin’s Visualizer Library section …

After installing 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 insert into your pages and posts.

How To Configure The Plugin

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

A visual gallery displaying all of the built-in kinds of graphs and 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 open up in a lightbox.

The next step is to upload a CSV file containing 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. boolean, datetime, etc.)

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

If you are unsure about how to format your CSV file, just study the sample file supplied with the plugin.

Once you have done this, 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‘ …

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

The plugin will now import your data and display it using the graph/chart type you have previously selected …

Upload CSV File From The Web

For a tutorial that explains 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 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 picked, the plugin will display a range of customization options …

The plugin gives you complete control of 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 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 look of your chart or graph, click Create Chart …

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

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

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

After adding a chart or graph to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit its details, duplicate it, or trash it …

Visualizer Usage

Once you’ve created a new chart or graph and added it to the Library, adding it to posts and pages 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‘ …

Select the chart or graph you want to add to your content and click the “insert” icon …

This will add a shortcode for the element into your content …

Once you have added the item, click on Publish to publish (or update) your post or page …

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

Your post or page displays your graph in the location where you have inserted the shortcode …

As mentioned previously, Visualizer also displays responsive charts and graphs for mobile browsing …

As you can see, Visualizer lets you insert and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can change your data and your changes will automatically be reflected wherever you have inserted your charts, graphs, comparison bars , etc. in your website. This is one of the great benefits of using the Visualizer plugin if you’re working with interactive graph information in WordPress.

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

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 insert dynamic charts and graphs into WordPress with WordPress Visualizer.

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