How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

You’ve no doubt heard the adage “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This certainly applies when you’re presenting and explaining complex information.

Using charts and graphs can help to break up long chunks of technical information, and make technical data more easily digestible.

You can use tables to present data, but if you want people to try and interpret complex data with figures, trends and comparisons easily, then charts and graphs let you present your data in an intelligent and meaningful way that can be quickly understood.

Charts and graphs help explain complex information so your audience can more easily understand it!

Need to add charts and graphs to your WordPress pages and posts? 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 embed dynamic graphs and charts into your WordPress posts and pages that:

• Your web visitors can engage with
• Lets you upload data from your hard drive or a web-based source of data
• Dynamically resizes for mobile viewing

If you plan to display visual data like bar charts, comparison bars or trending graphs that contain static information (e.g. historical data), an easier option is to create the charts or graphs using an image editing application, convert these into .jpg or .png files and then simply insert your files and an image into your pages or posts.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to add interactive bars 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 great WordPress plugin that is simple to install, easy-to-use and allows you to not only create appealing and interactive charts and graphs, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with dynamic data.

Visualizer Plugin For WordPress

Visualizer URL

You can install the plugin inside your WP dashboard (explained further down the page), or download WordPress Visualizer from the link below:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Plugin Description

Visualizer is an easy-to-use and powerful tool that allows you to create, manage and insert dynamic graphs and charts into your WordPress posts and pages with a few mouse clicks.

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 plugins or add-ons are needed.

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 a flexible and customizable plugin, allowing you to use Google Chart Tools with their default setting, or configure an extensive set of options to match your web design. Several 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 device browsers without having to install extra software.

How To Install The Plugin

Inside your WordPress admin area, select Plugins > Add New from the main admin menu …

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

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

Click OK to go ahead …

Activate the plugin after installation is successful …

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 from your 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 add charts and graphs to the library.

How To Configure The Plugin

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

A visual gallery displaying all the types 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 …

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

The screenshot below shows how to format your data …

If you are unsure about how to format your CSV file, just use the sample file that comes 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 the CSV file and data from your computer select ‘From Computer‘ …

Locate and select your file and click on ‘Open‘ …

The plugin imports your data and displays it using the graph/chart type you have chosen …

Upload CSV File From The Web

For a step-by-step tutorial that shows you 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 your information is correct (if not, click on the ‘Back’ button and reupload a new data file with the right data), and then click ‘Next‘ …

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

The plugin gives you total control over 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 on the ‘Create Chart’ button …

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

Note that every new element is given a unique ID displayed as a shortcode. As you will see very soon, this lets you insert graphs and charts into your pages very easily …

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

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

Visualizer Usage

After creating a new chart or graph and adding it to Visualizer, 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 your content and click on Add Media …

Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …

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

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

After you have finished adding the item, click on Publish to publish (or update) your page or post …

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

Your page or post should display the graph in where you placed the shortcode …

As mentioned earlier, Visualizer also displays responsive elements for viewing on mobile devices …

As you can see, Visualizer lets you add and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can edit your data and your changes will automatically be reflected wherever you have inserted your charts, graphs, comparison bars , etc. in your website. This is a real time-saving feature of the plugin if you’re adding interactive chart information in WordPress.

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 WordPress Visualizer.

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

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

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

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