How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

No doubt you’re familiar with the adage “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This certainly applies when you are presenting and explaining data.

Using graphs and charts is a great way to make statistical data and information more easily digestible.

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

Graphs and charts help present 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 WordPress Visualizer – a simple, easy to use and powerful WP plugin that lets you create, manage and insert dynamic graphs into your WordPress posts and pages in just a few mouse clicks that:

• Your web visitors can interact with
• Lets you upload data from your computer or an online source of data
• Is responsive for mobile browsers

If you are displaying visual data like pie charts, comparison bars or trending graphs that contain static information (e.g. historical data), an easier way to present the data is to create the graphs or charts using an image editing application, convert these into jpg or png images and then simply add your images to your posts or pages.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to insert interactive bars and pie graphs into 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 colorful and dynamic graphs and charts, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with dynamic data.

Visualizer

Visualizer Plugin URL

You can install the plugin inside your WordPress dashboard (we show you how to do this further down the page), or download the WP Visualizer plugin here:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Plugin Description

WP Visualizer is a simple, easy to use and powerful plugin for WordPress that allows you to create, manage and embed interactive charts and graphs into your WordPress posts and pages with a few mouse clicks.

WordPress 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 components are needed.

WordPress Visualizer also contains a variety of built-in that are optimized to address all 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 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 blog or site visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile browsers without requiring the installation of any additional software.

Plugin Installation

From your WP dashboard, select Plugins > Add New from the dashboard menu …

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

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

Click OK to continue …

Activate the plugin after installation is successful …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins area …

Once the plugin has been activated, click on Library …

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

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

After installing the plugin, this section will be empty.

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

How To Configure The Plugin

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

An image gallery displaying all of the default kinds of graphs available will come up on your screen.

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

Your selected 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, ensure that:

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

The screenshot below shows how to format your data correctly …

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

Once you have completed this step, 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‘ …

Use the browser to locate and select your file and click on ‘Open‘ …

The plugin will now import the data from the CSV file and display it using the graph/chart type you have selected …

Upload CSV File From The Web

For a step-by-step 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 selected, the plugin will display various customization options …

Visualizer gives you full control over your chart or graph, and updates your display in real time …

For example, the pie chart offers many 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 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 way your chart or graph is looking, click on the ‘Create Chart’ button …

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

Note that new visual elements are given a unique ID displayed as a shortcode. As you will see shortly, this allows you to easily insert charts and graphs into your content …

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

After adding a new item to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit its details, duplicate it, or delete it …

Visualizer Usage

After you’ve created a element and added it to the Visualizer Library, adding it to a post is quite simple.

First, create a new post or page (or open an existing one) …

Next, place your mouse cursor where you would like to insert your visual element into the 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 for the element into your content …

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

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

Your graph or chart will show up in the location you specified …

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

As you can see, WordPress Visualizer allows you to add and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can modify your data and the changes will automatically be reflected throughout your website. This is one of the great benefits of using the Visualizer plugin if you’re working with interactive graph data in WordPress.

The developers of this plugin have created a number 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, go to the site below:

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

Congratulations! Now you know how to insert great-looking and mobile-responsive pie charts and graphs into your WordPress pages and posts with WordPress Visualizer.

***

***