How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

You’ve no doubt heard the old saying “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This is certainly true when you’re trying to present and explain complex data.

Using charts and graphs is great for breaking up content that has lots of text, and making technical or statistical data more easily digestible.

You can present data using tables, but if you want people to try and interpret complex data with figures, percentages or comparisons more easily, then charts and graphs let you present the data in an intelligent and meaningful way that can be quickly and easily processed.

Graphs and charts help you present complex information so people can more easily understand it!

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

• Your site visitors can interact with
• Lets you upload data from your computer or an online data source
• Is dynamically responsive for mobile users

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

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to easily create interactive bars and pie charts in your 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 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 updatable information.

Visualizer

Visualizer URL

You can install the plugin in your WP dashboard (we explain how to do this a little further down the page), or access and download the Visualizer plugin from the link below:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Visualizer Plugin Description

The Visualizer plugin is a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that allows you to create, manage and insert colorful and interactive charts 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 extra components are needed.

WordPress Visualizer also provides a variety of built-in optimized for 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 your site’s design. A number of options are available for each chart that allow you to further 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 web visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile device browsers without having to install extra software.

Plugin Installation

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

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

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

Click OK to go ahead …

Activate the plugin after successfully installing it …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins area …

Once your plugin has been activated, click on Library …

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

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

When you first install the plugin, the library contains no charts.

Your next step is to add the charts and graphs to your library that you plan to display in your content.

How To Configure Visualizer

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

An image gallery displaying all of the kinds 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 pop up in a new window.

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

When creating your CSV data file, ensure that:

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

The screenshot below shows how to format your data as required …

If you are unsure about how to format your data CSV, just study the sample CSV file supplied 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 your CSV file from your hard drive select ‘From Computer‘ …

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

The plugin imports your data and displays it using the graph/chart type 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, go here:

• How To Populate Data Using Google Spreadsheet

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

Depending on the chart or graph type you have chosen, the plugin displays various customization options and settings …

The plugin gives you total control of 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 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’re happy with the look of your chart or graph, click Create Chart …

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

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

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

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

Visualizer Plugin Usage

After you’ve created a element and added it to the Visualizer Library, adding it to a post or page is quite 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 the content and click on Add Media …

Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …

Select the element to be added to your content and click the “insert” icon …

This will place a shortcode into your content …

After you have finished adding your visual element, click on Publish to publish (or update) your content …

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

Your page or post will display the graph in your content …

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

As you can see, WordPress Visualizer allows you to insert and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can edit your data and your changes will automatically be reflected throughout your website. This makes adding dynamic graph information in WordPress very efficient.

The developers of this plugin have created a series of step-by-step tutorials you can use to learn how to edit, customize and use WordPress Visualizer.

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

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

Congratulations! Now you know how to add appealing and interactive bar charts and graphs to your WordPress pages with WordPress Visualizer.

***

***