How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

No doubt you’re familiar with the old adage “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This certainly applies when you’re trying to present and explain data.

Charts and graphs are a great way to make technical or statistical data more easily digestible.

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

Graphs and charts help you present complex information so people can more easily interpret it!

Need to add charts or graphs to your WordPress posts? This tutorial shows you how to use WP Visualizer – a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that lets you create, manage and insert great-looking and dynamic charts and graphs into your WordPress posts and pages with a few simple steps that:

• Your web visitors can engage with
• Allows you to add data from your hard drive or a web-based source of data
• Resizes dynamically for mobile viewing

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

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to easily insert dynamic bar charts and pie charts into WordPress pages 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 that is simple to install, easy-to-use and allows you to not only create appealing and mobile-responsive charts and graphs, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with updateable information.

Visualizer – WP Plugin

Visualizer URL

You can install the plugin inside your WordPress dashboard (explained a little further below), or access and download Visualizer here:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Visualizer Plugin Description

Visualizer is a simple, easy to use and powerful WP plugin that allows you to create, manage and insert appealing and mobile-responsive charts 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 additional plugins or add-ons are required.

WordPress Visualizer also provides a variety of charts optimized for 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 let you further 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 site visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile browsers without requiring the installation of any extra plugins.

Plugin Installation

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

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

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

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

This brings up the plugin’s Visualizer Library options screen …

After installing the plugin, the library section will be empty.

Your next step is to add the charts and graphs to your library that you plan to publish to your content.

How To Configure The Plugin

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

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

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

Your graph/chart type will pop up in a lightbox.

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

When creating your CSV data file, ensure that:

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

The screenshot below shows how to format your data as explained above …

If you are unsure about how to format your CSV file, just study the sample CSV file provided 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 from your hard drive select ‘From Computer‘ …

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

The plugin will now import the data from the CSV file and display it using the graph/chart type you have selected …

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 the data, make sure 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 click ‘Next‘ …

Depending on the chart or graph type you have picked, the plugin displays a number of customization settings …

Visualizer gives you full control over 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 happy with the look of your chart or graph, click on the ‘Create Chart’ button …

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

Note that every visual element is given a unique ID displayed in a shortcode. As you will see very soon, this allows you to easily insert charts and graphs into your content …

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

After adding a new element to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit its details, duplicate it, or delete it …

Plugin Usage

Once you’ve created a new element and added it to the Visualizer Library, adding it to a page or post is very simple.

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 the content and click on Add Media …

Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …

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

This inserts a shortcode for the element into your content …

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

After your page/post has been published, click ‘View post’ to see the result …

You will see your graph in where you placed the shortcode …

As mentioned earlier, Visualizer also displays responsive elements for mobile viewers …

As you can see, WordPress Visualizer lets you add and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can modify your data and your changes will automatically be reflected throughout your website. This makes working with interactive chart information in WordPress really easy.

The plugin developers have created a series of tutorials you can refer to for ways to edit, customize and use Visualizer.

For 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 add great-looking and interactive charts and graphs to WordPress with WordPress Visualizer plugin.

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