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 or explaining complex data.

Using graphs and charts is great for breaking up long chunks of technical information, and making technical data simpler and easier to digest.

You can present data with tables, but if you want people to try and make sense of complex data with numbers, trends or comparisons more easily, then graphs and charts are perfect for helping them understand your data.

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

If you need to learn how to display information visually and dynamically on your WordPress site like graphs and charts, this tutorial will show you exactly how to create and add colourful and updateable charts and graphs to your WP pages and posts that:

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

If you are displaying visual data like bar charts, comparison charts or trending graphs which contain information that is not going to change (e.g. historical data), an easier way to add the data is to create your graphs or charts using a desktop application, convert these into images and then simply insert the files and an image into your posts or pages.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

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

Fortunately, there is a great free WordPress plugin that is simple to install, easy-to-use and allows you to not only create colorful and dynamic 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 access and download the Visualizer plugin from the link below:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Plugin Description

WP Visualizer is a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that allows you to create, manage and insert eye-catching 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 add-ons are required.

The plugin 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

Visualizer 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 web design. Various options are available for each chart that allow you to customize their settings.

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 devices without requiring the installation of extra software.

How To Install The Plugin

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

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

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

Click OK to continue …

Activate the plugin …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins page …

After your plugin has been activated, click on Library …

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

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

After installing the plugin, this section will be empty.

Your next step is to add add charts and graphs to the library.

Visualizer Plugin Configuration

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

A page will load in your screen displaying all the types of graphs available.

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

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

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

When creating your CSV data file, ensure that:

• The first row includes the column headings.
• The second row contains the series type (e.g. number, date, etc.)

The screenshot below shows how to format your data correctly …

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

Next, select your data source (‘From Computer’ or ‘From Web’) in the ‘Upload CSV File’ section.

Upload CSV File From Computer

To upload your CSV file from your computer select ‘From Computer‘ …

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

The plugin imports the data from the CSV file and displays it using the graph/chart type selected …

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, 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’ve picked, the plugin will display various customization settings and options …

The plugin gives you full control over your information, 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 …

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

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

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

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

Plugin Usage

After creating a new graph or chart and adding it to Visualizer, adding it to posts and 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 Add Media …

Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …

Find the graph or chart you want to add to your content and click the “insert” icon …

This inserts a shortcode for the element into your content …

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

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

Your post or page displays the visual element in your content …

As mentioned previously, the plugin also displays responsive visual elements for mobile browsing …

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 wherever you have inserted your charts, graphs, comparison bars , etc. in your site. This makes managing interactive chart information in WordPress very efficient.

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

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

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

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

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