How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

You’ve heard the 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 great for breaking up long text passages, and making technical or statistical data more easily digestible.

You can use tables to present information, but if you want your audience to try and make sense of complex information with numbers, percentages and relationships more easily, then charts and graphs are perfect for helping them understand your information.

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

If you want to learn how to present information visually and dynamically on your WordPress site using graphs and charts, this step-by-step tutorial will show you how to create and add eye-catching and updateable charts to your WP pages and posts that:

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

If you plan to display visual data like bar charts, comparison charts or trending graphs that contain static information (e.g. historical data), a simple method you can use to present this information is to create your charts or graphs using a desktop application, convert these into images and then simply add your images to your post or page.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to easily insert interactive bars and pie charts into 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 sites 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 dynamic content.

Visualizer

Plugin URL

You can install the plugin in your WP dashboard (see a little further down the page), or download WordPress Visualizer from the link below:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Plugin Description

The Visualizer plugin is a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that allows you to create, manage and embed beautiful charts and graphs into your WordPress posts and pages in 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 plugins or add-ons are required.

WordPress Visualizer also provides 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 your site’s design. Various options are available for each chart that let you 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 any additional software.

Plugin Installation

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

In the Add Plugins screen type in “visualizer” into the search field and click enter …

Locate the plugin 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 …

After the plugin has been activated, click on Library …

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

This brings up the plugin’s Visualizer Library options …

When you first install 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 new chart or graph to the library, click on the ‘Add New’ button …

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

Select the type of chart or graph 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 containing 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. boolean, timeofday, etc.)

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

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

Once you have completed this step, select the 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 the data 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 the data, make sure that all of the 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 will display various customization options and settings …

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

For example, the pie chart offers various 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 a 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 the way your graph or chart appears, click on the ‘Create Chart’ button …

The chart or graph will now be added to the Visualizer ‘Library’ …

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

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

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

Plugin Usage

After creating a new chart or graph and adding it to the Library, it’s simple to insert it into your posts and pages.

First, create a new post or page (or open an existing one) …

Next, place your mouse cursor where you would like to insert your visual element into your content and click on the ‘Add Media‘ button …

Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …

Select the element to be inserted into your content and click on the “insert” icon …

This will add a shortcode into your content …

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

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

You will see your graph in the content …

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

As you can see, Visualizer allows you to add and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can edit your data and the 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 working with interactive chart 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 WordPress Visualizer.

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

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

Congratulations! Now you know how to add great-looking and interactive charts and graphs to your WordPress pages and posts.

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