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 presenting and explaining complex information.
Using charts and graphs is useful for breaking up long and difficult content, and making technical data more easily digestible.
You can use tables to present information, but if you want your audience to try and make sense of complex information with figures, trends or relationships more easily, then charts and graphs are perfect for helping them understand your information.
Charts and graphs help present complex data 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 beautiful and mobile-responsive graphs and charts into your WordPress posts and pages in just a few simple steps that:
- Your visitors can interact with
- Lets you add chart or graph data from your computer or an online source of data
- Is dynamically responsive for mobile device viewing
If you are displaying visual data like bar charts, comparison charts or trending graphs containing static information (e.g. historical data), an easier way to display your information is to create your graphs or charts using an image editing application, convert these into images and then simply add your files and an image to your content.
Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins
If you want to easily add dynamic bar charts and pie graphs to WordPress with no coding skills required, the easiest way to do this is to use a plugin.
Fortunately, there is a free plugin for WordPress that is simple to install, easy-to-use and allows you to not only create colorful and mobile-responsive charts and graphs, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with dynamic information.
Visualizer – WordPress Plugin
Plugin URL
You can install the plugin in your WP dashboard (explained further down the page), or download Visualizer the WP plugin repository using the link below:
http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer
Visualizer Description
WP Visualizer is a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that allows you to create, manage and embed stunning and mobile-responsive graphs and charts into your WordPress posts and pages in just 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 additional components are required.
The plugin also provides a variety of charts 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 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. Several options are available for each chart that allow you to fully 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 site visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile devices without having to install any extra plugins.
How To Install The Plugin
Inside your WordPress dashboard, select Plugins > Add New from the navigation sidebar menu …
In the Add Plugins screen type in “visualizer” into the search field and click enter …
Locate the plugin in the search results screen and click Install Now …
Click OK to go ahead …
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 get to the plugin’s ‘library’ screen by choosing Media > Visualizer Library in the admin menu …
This brings up the plugin’s Visualizer Library page …
After installing the plugin, the library section will be empty.
The next step is to add the charts and graphs to your library that you plan to insert into your posts or pages.
Visualizer Plugin Configuration
To add a graph or chart to the Visualizer library, click on the Add New button …
You will see all the different kinds of graphs available.
Select the type of graph or chart you would like to create and click on the ‘Next’ button …
The selected graph/chart type will pop up in a lightbox.
The next step is to upload a CSV file containing all the data you would like your chart or graph to be populated with …
When creating your CSV data file, ensure that:
- Your first row contains your column headings.
- The second row contains 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 not sure how to format your CSV file, just refer to the sample CSV file that comes with the plugin.
Once you have done this, select your 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 hard drive select ‘From Computer‘ …
Locate and select your data file and click on ‘Open‘ …
The plugin will now import the data from the CSV file and display it using the graph/chart type chosen …
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, go here:
After importing your data, make sure that all of your information is correct (if not, click on the ‘Back’ button and reupload a data file containing the right data), and then click ‘Next‘ …
Depending on the chart or graph type selected, the plugin displays a range of customization options …
Visualizer gives you total 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 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’re happy with how your graph or chart looks, click on the ‘Create Chart’ button …
The new graph or chart will be added to your ‘Visualizer Library’ section …
Note that every element is given a unique ID displayed as a shortcode. As you will see very soon, this allows you to easily embed graphs and charts 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 its details, duplicate it, or delete it …
Plugin Usage
After creating a new element and adding it to the Library, it’s easy to add it to a page.
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‘ …
Select the element to be inserted into your content and click the “insert” icon …
This adds a shortcode into your content …
Once you have added the element, click on Publish to publish (or update) your content …
Once your post/page has been published, click ‘View post’ to see the results …
Your graph will display in the location where you have inserted the shortcode …
As mentioned previously, Visualizer also displays responsive charts for mobile browsers …
As you can see, Visualizer allows you to add and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can modify your data and your changes will automatically be reflected throughout your site. This makes working with dynamic chart data in WordPress very easy.
The developers of this plugin have created a number of step-by-step tutorials you can refer to for ways to edit, customize and use the Visualizer plugin for WordPress.
For additional tutorials on editing, cloning, deleting and adding data to your charts, refer to the website below:
Congratulations! Now you know how to create beautiful and mobile-responsive bar charts and graphs in WordPress with WordPress Visualizer plugin.
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