How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

You’re probably familiar with the old saying “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This certainly applies when you are presenting and explaining data.

Using charts and graphs can help to break up long text passages, and make statistical data and information more easily digestible.

You can present information using tables, but if you want your audience to try and interpret complex information with numbers, trends or comparisons more easily, then graphs and charts are perfect for helping them interpret your information.

Graphs and charts help explain complex information so your audience can more easily understand it!

If you need to learn how to present dynamic visual content on your WordPress site using graphs and charts, this step-by-step tutorial will show you exactly how to create and add beautiful and interactive graphs and charts to WordPress that:

• Your web visitors can interact with
• Allows you to upload chart or graph data from your hard drive or an online data source
• Dynamically resizes for mobile users

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

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to insert dynamic bars and pie charts into WordPress posts and pages with no coding skills required, the easiest way to do this is to use a plugin.

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

Visualizer – WP Plugin

Visualizer Plugin URL

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

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Visualizer Plugin Description

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

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 extra add-ons are required.

The plugin also contains a variety of built-in 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 a flexible and customizable plugin, allowing you to use Google Chart Tools with their default setting, or configure an extensive set of options to match your web design. A number of options are available for each chart that let you fully 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 web visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile device browsers without requiring the installation of any additional plugins.

How To Install The Plugin

From your WP administration area, select Plugins > Add New from the main admin menu …

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

Locate the plugin in the search results area and click Install Now …

Click OK to continue …

Activate the plugin …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins area …

After your plugin has been activated, click on Library …

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

This brings up the plugin’s Visualizer Library options …

After installing the plugin, the library will contain no charts.

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

Plugin Configuration

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

A visual gallery displaying all the different types of charts available will load on your screen.

Select the type of chart or graph 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 with your data …

When creating your CSV data file, make sure that:

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

The screenshot below shows how to format your data correctly …

If you are not sure how to format your data CSV, simply use the sample spreadsheet provided 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 the CSV file and data from your hard drive select ‘From Computer‘ …

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

The plugin imports the data and displays it using the graph/chart type you have 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 new data file with the correct data), and click ‘Next‘ …

Depending on the chart or graph type you’ve picked, the plugin will display a number of customization options …

The plugin gives you total control over your chart or graph, 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 …

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

Note that each new element is given a unique ID displayed as a shortcode. As you will see in just a moment, this lets you add charts and graphs to your posts quickly and easily …

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

After an item has been added to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit its details, clone it, or trash it …

Plugin Usage

After you have created a element and added it to the Library, adding it to a page 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 your content and click on the ‘Add Media‘ button …

Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …

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

This will place a shortcode into your content …

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

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

Your post or page will display the item in the content …

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

As you can see, Visualizer lets you insert and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can edit your data and the changes will automatically be reflected throughout your site. This is great if you’re adding dynamic chart data in WordPress.

The developers of this plugin have created a series of step-by-step tutorials you can refer to for ways to edit, customize and use the Visualizer plugin.

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

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

Congratulations! Now you know how to easily insert dynamic pie charts and graphs into WordPress.

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