How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

No doubt you’re familiar with the old saying “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This is certainly true when you’re presenting and explaining complex information.

Using graphs and charts is useful for breaking up content containing too much text, and making technical or statistical data more easily digestible.

You can present information using tables, but if you want people to try and interpret complex data with numbers, trends or relationships quickly, then graphs and charts are perfect for helping them interpret your data.

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

If you want to present dynamic visual content on your WordPress site like graphs and charts, this tutorial will show you how to create and add colorful and updatable charts and graphs to your posts and pages that:

• Your site visitors can engage with
• Allows you to upload chart or graph data from your computer or an online source of data
• Will dynamically resize for mobile browsing

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

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

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

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

Visualizer

Plugin URL

You can install the plugin in your WP dashboard (we will explain how to do this further below), or download Visualizer from the link below:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Visualizer Description

The WP Visualizer plugin is a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that lets you create, manage and insert beautiful and dynamic graphs into your WordPress posts and pages with just a few simple steps.

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 components are needed.

WordPress Visualizer also comes with 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

The plugin 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. A number of options are available for each chart that allow you to 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 visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile browsers without having to install any additional software.

How To Install WP Visualizer

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

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

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

Click OK to proceed …

Activate the plugin after installing it …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins section …

After the plugin has been activated, click on Library …

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

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

After installing the plugin, this section will be empty.

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

Visualizer Configuration

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

You will be presented with all of the kinds of charts and graphs available.

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

Your selected graph/chart type will open up in a new window.

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

When creating your CSV data file, make sure that:

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

The screenshot below shows how to format your data …

If you are not sure how to format your data CSV, just download the sample that comes 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 your CSV file and data from your hard drive select ‘From Computer‘ …

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

The plugin will now import your data 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, see the article below:

• 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 with the correct data), and then click ‘Next‘ …

Depending on the chart or graph type selected, the plugin displays a range of customization options and settings …

The plugin gives you full control of your chart or graph, and updates your display in real time …

For example, the pie chart offers various configurable options, including:

• General Settings – Configure chart title settings, 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 satisfied with how your graph or chart is looking, click Create Chart …

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

Note that new elements are given a unique ID displayed as a shortcode. As you will see very soon, this lets you easily embed graphs and charts into your content …

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

After a graph or chart has been added to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit it, clone it, or trash it …

Visualizer Plugin Usage

After creating a chart or graph and adding it to the Library, adding it to pages or posts is really 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 your content and click on the ‘Add Media‘ button …

Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …

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

This will place a shortcode for the element into your content …

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

Once the post/page has been updated, click ‘View post’ to see the end result …

You will see the chart in the location you specified …

As mentioned earlier, Visualizer also displays responsive graphs for mobile browsing …

As you can see, the Visualizer plugin lets you insert and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can change your data and the changes will automatically be reflected throughout your website. This makes working with dynamic graph data in WordPress really easy.

The plugin developers 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, cloning, deleting and adding data to your charts, go to the website below:

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

Congratulations! Now you know how to create appealing and mobile-responsive charts and graphs in WordPress.

***

***