How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

You’ve no doubt heard the old saying “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This is certainly true when you are presenting or explaining data.

Using charts and graphs is useful for making technical or statistical data a lot simpler to digest.

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

Charts and graphs help present complex information so people can more easily interpret it!

Need to add charts or graphs to WordPress? 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 embed colorful graphs into your WordPress posts and pages with just a few simple steps that:

• Your site visitors can interact with
• Lets you upload data from your computer or an online source of data
• Dynamically resizes for mobile device browsing

If you plan to display visual data like bar charts, comparison graphs or trending graphs which contain information that is not going to change (e.g. historical data), a simple method you can use to add the data is to create your graphs or charts using a desktop application, convert these into jpg or png files and then simply add your image to your page or post.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to create interactive bars and pie graphs in your WordPress posts 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 users that is simple to install, easy-to-use and allows you to not only create eye-catching and interactive graphs and charts, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with updateable content.

Visualizer Plugin For WordPress

Visualizer URL

You can install the plugin inside your WP dashboard (see a little further below), or access and download Visualizer the WordPress plugin repository using the link below:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Visualizer Description

WordPress Visualizer is a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that allows you to create, manage and embed dynamic graphs and charts into your WordPress posts and pages in a few mouse clicks.

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 extra addons are required.

Visualizer also comes with a variety of built-in 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

Visualizer is a flexible and customizable plugin, 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. Various options are available for each chart that allow you to fully 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 devices without having to install any additional plugins.

Plugin Installation

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

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

Locate the plugin in the search results section and click Install Now …

Click OK to go ahead …

Activate the plugin after installation is successful …

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 selecting Media > Visualizer Library from your dashboard menu …

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

After installing the plugin, this section will be empty.

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

Plugin Configuration

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

An image gallery displaying all of the default types of charts available will come up on your screen.

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

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

The next step is to upload a CSV file that contains the data you would like to populate your chart or graph with …

When creating your CSV data file, make sure that:

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

The screenshot below shows how to format your data correctly …

If you are not sure how to format your data CSV, simply study the sample CSV file provided with the plugin.

Once you have completed this step, select your 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 hard drive select ‘From Computer‘ …

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

The plugin will now import the data and display it using the graph/chart type you have chosen …

Upload CSV File From The Web

For a step-by-step 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 your data, check that all of your information is correct (if not, click on the ‘Back’ button and reupload a data file with the right data), and click ‘Next‘ …

Depending on the chart or graph type you’ve chosen, the plugin displays a range of customization settings …

The WordPress Visualizer plugin gives you total control of your chart or graph, 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 are happy with the look of your chart or graph, click Create Chart …

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

Note that every element is given a unique ID displayed as a shortcode. As you will see in just a moment, this allows you to easily embed graphs and charts into your content …

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

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

Visualizer Plugin Usage

After creating a graph or chart and adding it to the Visualizer Library, adding it to your content is really 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 graph or chart to be inserted into your content and click the “insert” icon …

This will add a shortcode into your content …

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

Once the page has been published, click ‘View post’ to see it …

You will see your visual element in the location where you have added the shortcode …

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

As you can see, WordPress Visualizer allows you to add and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can change your data and the changes will automatically be reflected wherever you have inserted your charts, graphs, comparison bars , etc. in your site. This is a real time-saving benefit of the plugin if you’re managing dynamic graph data in WordPress.

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

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

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

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

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