How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

No doubt you’re familiar with the saying “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This is certainly true when you are trying to present or explain data.

Using graphs and charts is great for making technical or statistical data much easier to understand.

You can present data using tables, but if you want your audience to try and make sense of complex information with numbers, trends and relationships quickly, then graphs and charts are perfect for helping them understand the information.

Charts and graphs help present complex data so your audience can more easily interpret it!

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

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

If you plan to display visual data like bar charts, comparison graphs or trending graphs containing information that is not going to change (e.g. historical data), an easier option is to create the graphs or charts using an image editing application, convert these into images and then simply add your images to your content.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to easily create interactive bars and graphs in your WordPress pages and posts with no coding skills required, the easiest way to do this is to use a plugin.

Fortunately, there is a great free plugin for WordPress users that is simple to install, easy-to-use and allows you to not only create beautiful and interactive graphs and charts, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with updateable data.

Visualizer – WordPress Plugin

Visualizer URL

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

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Plugin Description

WordPress Visualizer is a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that allows you to create, manage and embed eye-catching and dynamic charts and graphs into your WordPress posts and pages in just a few mouse clicks.

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 plugins are required.

The plugin also contains 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 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 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 site visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile web browsers without requiring the installation of any extra software.

Plugin Installation

Inside your WordPress admin area, 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 entry in the search results area and click Install Now …

Click OK to proceed …

Activate the plugin …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins area …

Once the plugin has been activated, click on Library …

You can get to the plugin’s ‘library’ screen by choosing Media > Visualizer Library from the dashboard menu …

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

When you first install the plugin, the library section will be empty.

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

How To Configure The Plugin

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

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

Select the chart or graph type 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 with all the data you want to populate your chart or graph with …

When creating your CSV data file, ensure that:

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

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

If you are unsure about how to format your CSV file, simply refer to the sample CSV file provided with the plugin.

Once you have created your CSV file, 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 computer select ‘From Computer‘ …

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

The plugin will import your data from the CSV file and display it using the graph/chart type you have previously 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:

• How To Populate Data Using Google Spreadsheet

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

Depending on the chart or graph type you have selected, the plugin will display various customization settings …

The plugin gives you complete control over 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’re 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’ …

Note that every visual element is given a unique ID displayed in a shortcode. As you will see shortly, this lets you embed graphs and charts into your WordPress posts and pages easily …

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

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

Visualizer Usage

After creating a element and adding it to the Visualizer Library, it’s simple to add it to pages and posts.

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‘ …

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

This adds a shortcode for the element into your content …

Once you have added the item, click on Publish to publish (or update) your post or page …

After updating your page/post, click ‘View post’ to see the result …

Your page or post displays your chart in the location where you placed the shortcode …

As mentioned previously, the plugin also displays responsive charts for mobile users …

As you can see, the Visualizer plugin 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 website. This makes adding interactive graph data in WordPress really efficient.

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 WordPress.

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

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

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

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