How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

You’ve heard the saying “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This certainly applies when you’re presenting or explaining complex data.

Using charts and graphs is a great way to break up long text passages, and make data more easily digestible.

You can use tables to present information, but if you want your audience to try and interpret complex data with figures, trends or comparisons quickly, then charts and graphs are perfect for helping them interpret the information.

Graphs and charts help you explain complex data so people can more easily interpret it!

If you want to present information visually and dynamically on your WordPress site using charts and graphs, this tutorial will show you how to create and add great-looking and updateable charts and graphs to your WP pages that:

• Your web visitors can engage with
• Lets you add chart or graph data from your computer or a web-based source of data
• Is responsive for mobile viewers

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

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to embed dynamic bar charts and pie graphs into your WordPress pages with no coding skills required, the easiest way to do this is to use a plugin.

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

WordPress Plugin: Visualizer

Visualizer Plugin URL

You can install the plugin in your WordPress dashboard (see further below), or download Visualizer the WordPress free plugin repository using the link below:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Visualizer Description

WP Visualizer is a simple, easy to use and powerful WP plugin that allows you to create, manage and embed eye-catching and dynamic graphs and charts into your WordPress posts and pages in 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 additional plugins are needed.

WordPress Visualizer also contains a variety of charts 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 your web design. Various options are available for each chart that allow you to 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 blog or site visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile devices without having to install extra plugins.

How To Install The Plugin

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

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

Locate Visualizer in the search results area and click Install Now …

Click OK to continue …

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 the dashboard menu …

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

After installing the plugin, this section will be empty.

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

Plugin Configuration

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

A page will appear on your screen with all the kinds of charts and graphs available.

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

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

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

When creating your CSV data file, make sure that:

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

The screenshot below shows how to format your data as per the requirements above …

If you are not sure how to format your CSV file, just download the sample CSV file provided with the plugin.

Next, select the 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‘ …

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

The plugin imports your data from the CSV file and displays 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 the data, make sure that all of the information is correct (if not, click on the ‘Back’ button and reupload a data file with the right data), and then click ‘Next‘ …

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

Visualizer gives you total control of your information, and updates your display in real time …

For example, the pie chart offers various configurable options, such as:

• 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 are happy with the way your chart or graph looks, click on the ‘Create Chart’ button …

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

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

Charts and graphs added to the Visualizer Library can be accessed by their type …

After adding an item to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit its details, clone it, or delete it …

Visualizer Plugin Usage

After creating a element and adding it to the Library, it’s very easy to add it to a post or page.

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 element you want to add to your content and click the “insert” icon …

This inserts a shortcode into your content …

Once you have finished adding your visual element, click on Publish to publish (or update) your page or post …

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

The chart or graph will appear in your content …

As mentioned earlier, the plugin also displays responsive graphs and charts for mobile viewing …

As you can see, the Visualizer plugin allows you to add and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can edit your data and your changes will automatically be reflected throughout your site. This is one of the great benefits of using the Visualizer plugin if you’re working with interactive graph data in WordPress.

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

For additional tutorials on editing, cloning, deleting and adding data to your charts, visit the site below:

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

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

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