How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

You’re probably familiar with the old saying “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This is certainly true when you are trying to present and explain data.

Using graphs and charts is a great way to break up long text passages, and make data more easily digestible.

You can use tables to present data, but if you want people to try and interpret complex information with numbers, trends and comparisons easily, then charts and graphs let you present your information in a meaningful and intelligent way that can be easily processed.

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

Need to add charts or graphs to WordPress? This step-by-step tutorial shows you how to use WP Visualizer – an easy-to-use and powerful plugin for WordPress that lets you create, manage and insert attractive and dynamic charts into your WordPress posts and pages that:

• Your visitors can interact with
• Allows you to upload chart or graph data from your hard drive or an online source of data
• Will dynamically resize for viewing on mobile devices

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

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to easily insert interactive bar charts and pie graphs into WordPress posts with no coding skills required, the easiest way to do this is to use a plugin.

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

Visualizer

Visualizer Plugin URL

You can install the plugin inside your WordPress dashboard (see a little further down the page), or download Visualizer here:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Plugin Description

WP Visualizer is a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that lets you create, manage and insert stunning and interactive charts 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 components are needed.

Visualizer also comes with 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

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 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 device browsers without having to install any additional software.

Plugin Installation

From your WordPress dashboard, select Plugins > Add New from the main sidebar menu …

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

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

Click OK to continue …

Activate the plugin after successfully installing it …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins section …

After your plugin has been activated, click on Library …

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

This takes you to the plugin’s Visualizer Library settings screen …

After installing the plugin, the library section will be empty.

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 The Plugin

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

An image gallery displaying all of the different kinds of graphs available will come up 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 pop up in a new window.

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

When creating your CSV data file, make sure that:

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

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

If you are not sure how to format your CSV file, just study the sample CSV file provided with the plugin.

Next, 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 computer select ‘From Computer‘ …

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

The plugin imports your data from the CSV file 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, go here:

• How To Populate Data Using Google Spreadsheet

After importing your data, check that all of the information is correct (if not, click on the ‘Back’ button and reupload a data file with the right data), and click ‘Next‘ …

Depending on the chart or graph type selected, the plugin displays a number of customization settings and options …

Visualizer gives you total control of your information, 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 are happy with the look of your chart or graph, click on the ‘Create Chart’ button …

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

Note that new visual elements are given a unique ID displayed as a shortcode. As you will see very soon, this lets you add charts and graphs to your WordPress pages and posts very easily …

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

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

Plugin Usage

After creating a graph or chart and adding it to Visualizer, it’s very easy to add it to 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 your content and click on Add Media …

Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …

Find the element you want to insert into your content and click on the “insert” icon …

This will add a shortcode into your content …

Once you have finished adding the shortcode, click on Publish to publish (or update) your content …

After publishing your page/post, click ‘View post’ to see the results …

Your page or post should display your graph or chart in the location you specified …

As mentioned earlier, the plugin also displays responsive elements for mobile viewing …

As you can see, WordPress Visualizer lets you add 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 site. This makes adding interactive graph data in WordPress really easy.

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

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

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

Congratulations! Now you know how to insert colorful charts and graphs into your WordPress pages with WordPress Visualizer plugin.

***

***