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 trying to present and explain complex information.

Using charts and graphs is a great way to make data more easily digestible.

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

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

Need to add charts or 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 appealing and mobile-responsive graphs and charts into your WordPress posts and pages that:

• Your web visitors can interact with
• Allows you to add data from your computer or a web-based source of data
• Dynamically resizes for mobile browsing

If you are displaying visual data like bar charts, comparison data or trending graphs containing information that is not going to change (e.g. historical data), a simple method you can use is to create the graphs or charts using a desktop application, convert these into jpg and png files and then simply insert the image files into your pages.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to easily add interactive bar charts and pie graphs to WordPress posts with no coding skills required, the easiest way to do this is to use a plugin.

Fortunately, there is a plugin for WordPress sites that is simple to install, easy-to-use and allows you to not only create colorful and mobile-responsive graphs and charts, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with dynamic information.

WP Plugin: Visualizer

Plugin URL

You can install the plugin from your WP dashboard (explained a little further below), or download Visualizer here:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Visualizer Description

WordPress Visualizer is an easy-to-use and powerful tool that allows you to create, manage and insert beautiful charts into your WordPress posts and pages in a few simple steps.

WordPress 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 plugins or add-ons are required.

Visualizer also provides a variety of built-in 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. A number of 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 web visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile device browsers without having to install extra plugins.

Plugin Installation

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

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

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

Click OK to continue …

Activate the plugin …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins area …

Once your plugin has been activated, click on Library …

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

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

When you first install the plugin, the library will contain no charts.

The next step is to add the charts and graphs to your library that you will want to publish to your content.

How To Configure The Plugin

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

A page will load on your screen with all the different kinds of charts available.

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

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

The next step is to upload a CSV file with all the data you want your chart or graph to be populated with …

When creating your CSV data file, ensure that:

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

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

If you are unsure about how to format your data CSV, just refer to the sample file supplied 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 the 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 and displays it using the graph/chart type you have previously chosen …

Upload CSV File From The Web

For a 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 the information is correct (if not, click on the ‘Back’ button and reupload a new data file containing the right data), and then click ‘Next‘ …

Depending on the chart or graph type you have chosen, the plugin will display a number of customization settings …

The WordPress Visualizer plugin gives you complete 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 satisfied with how your graph or chart appears, click Create Chart …

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

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

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

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

Plugin Usage

Once you’ve created a new chart or graph and added it to the Library, adding it to posts or pages is very 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‘ …

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

This inserts a shortcode into your content …

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

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

The item will show up in the location where you have added the shortcode …

As mentioned earlier, the plugin also displays responsive graphs for viewing on mobile devices …

As you can see, the Visualizer plugin allows you to add and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can modify your data and the changes will automatically be reflected wherever you have inserted your charts, graphs, comparison bars , etc. in your website. This makes working with dynamic chart data in WordPress really easy.

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

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 create attractive and dynamic bar charts and graphs in WordPress.

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