How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

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

Using charts and graphs is a great way to make data easier to grasp.

You can use tables to present information, but if you want your audience to try and interpret complex information with figures, percentages or comparisons quickly, then graphs and charts allow you to present your data in an intelligent and meaningful manner that can be easily understood.

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

Need to add charts and graphs to your WordPress pages? This tutorial shows you how to use WordPress Visualizer – a simple, easy to use and powerful plugin for WordPress that lets you create, manage and insert dynamic charts and graphs into your WordPress posts and pages that:

• Your site visitors can interact with
• Lets you upload chart or graph data from your hard drive or an online data source
• Dynamically resizes for mobile browsing

If you are displaying visual data like pie charts, comparison charts 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 images and then simply insert your image files into your posts or pages.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to easily create dynamic bars and pie charts in WordPress 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 that is simple to install, easy-to-use and allows you to not only create great-looking and mobile-responsive charts and graphs, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with updatable content.

Visualizer – WP Plugin

Plugin URL

You can install the plugin in your WordPress dashboard (explained further down the page), or access and download Visualizer the WordPress plugin directory using the link below:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Plugin Description

WP Visualizer is an easy-to-use and powerful plugin that allows you to create, manage and embed colorful charts into your WordPress posts and pages with 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 additional add-ons are required.

WordPress Visualizer also provides a variety of built-in that are optimized to address 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 web design. Various options are available for each chart that let you further 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 site visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile web browsers without having to install extra plugins.

How To Install Visualizer

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

In the Add Plugins screen type search for “visualizer” and click enter …

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

Click OK to continue …

Activate the plugin after installing it …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins area …

After the plugin has been activated, click on Library …

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

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

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

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

Visualizer Plugin Configuration

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

An image gallery displaying all of the types of graphs available will load on your screen.

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

The graph/chart type will pop up in a lightbox.

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

When creating your CSV data file, ensure that:

• The first row includes your column headings.
• The second row contains the series type (e.g. number, 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 supplied with the plugin.

Next, select your data source (‘From Computer’ or ‘From Web’) in the ‘Upload CSV File’ section.

Upload CSV File From Computer

To upload the CSV file from your hard drive select ‘From Computer‘ …

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

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

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, make sure that all of your 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 have picked, the plugin displays a number of customization options …

The plugin 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 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 way your chart or graph looks, click on the ‘Create Chart’ button …

Your graph or chart will be added to your Visualizer ‘Library’ …

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

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

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

Visualizer Plugin Usage

Once you have created a new element and added it to Visualizer, it’s easy to add it to your content.

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 the ‘Add Media‘ button …

Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …

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

This adds a shortcode for the element into your content …

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

Once your post/page has been published, click ‘View post’ to see the results …

You will see your chart in your content …

As mentioned previously, Visualizer also displays responsive elements for mobile viewers …

As you can see, Visualizer lets you add and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can modify your data and your changes will automatically be reflected wherever you have inserted your charts, graphs, comparison bars , etc. in your site. This is one of the great benefits of using the Visualizer plugin if you’re adding dynamic graph information in WordPress.

The developers of this plugin have created a number of tutorials you can refer to for ways to edit, customize and use the Visualizer plugin for WordPress.

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

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

Congratulations! Now you know how to easily create appealing and interactive pie charts and graphs in WordPress with WP Visualizer plugin.

***

***