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 is certainly true when you’re presenting or explaining complex data.

Using charts and graphs is useful for breaking up long or difficult content, and making data more easily digestible.

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

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

If you want to present dynamic visual content on your WordPress site like charts and graphs, this tutorial will show you exactly how to create great-looking and updatable charts to your pages that:

• Your site visitors can engage with
• Allows you to upload data from your hard drive or a web-based data source
• Is responsive for mobile screens

If you are displaying visual data like bar charts, comparison charts or trending graphs that contain static information (e.g. historical data), an easier way to display the information is to create your graphs or charts using an image editing application, convert these into images and then simply insert your image into your content.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

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

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

Visualizer

Plugin URL

You can install the plugin from your WordPress dashboard (see further below), or access and download WP Visualizer here:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Visualizer Plugin Description

Visualizer is an easy-to-use and powerful tool that lets you create, manage and insert appealing graphs and 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 extra plugins are required.

The plugin also contains a variety of charts that are optimized to address 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. A number of options are available for each chart that let you further 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 blog or site visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile browsers without having to install additional plugins.

Plugin Installation

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

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

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

Click OK to proceed …

Activate the plugin after successfully installing it …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins section …

Once the plugin has been activated, click on Library …

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

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

After installing the plugin, the library will contain no charts.

Your next step is to add the charts and graphs to your library that you plan to insert into your posts or pages.

How To Configure The Visualizer Plugin

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

A gallery displaying all of the different types of graphs available will come up on your screen.

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

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

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

When creating your CSV data file, make sure that:

• Your first row contains your column headings.
• The second row includes the series type (e.g. boolean, 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 CSV file, simply download the sample provided with the plugin.

Once you have done this, select your data source (‘From Computer’ or ‘From Web’) in the ‘Upload CSV File’ section.

Upload CSV File From Computer

To upload a 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 from the CSV file and display it using the graph/chart type 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, go here:

• How To Populate Data Using Google Spreadsheet

After importing the data, check 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 then click ‘Next‘ …

Depending on the chart or graph type you’ve selected, the plugin displays a number of customization options …

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

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

Note that new visual elements are given a unique ID displayed in a shortcode. As you will see very soon, this allows you to embed graphs and charts into your posts and pages quickly and easily …

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 its details, duplicate it, or trash it …

Plugin Usage

After creating a graph or chart and adding it to the Visualizer Library, adding it to a page 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 the ‘Add Media‘ button …

Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …

Find the element you want to insert into your content and click on the “insert” icon …

This inserts a shortcode into your content …

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

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

Your post or page should display your graph or chart in the content …

As mentioned previously, Visualizer also displays responsive graphs for mobile device browsing …

As you can see, Visualizer lets you 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 website. This makes managing dynamic graph information in WordPress very efficient.

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, copying, deleting and adding data to your charts, refer to the site below:

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

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

***

***