How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

No doubt you’re familiar with the adage “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This certainly applies when you are presenting and explaining data.

Graphs and charts help to break up long and boring information, and make statistical data more easily digestible.

You can use tables to present information, but if you want people to try and interpret complex information with figures, trends and relationships more easily, then graphs and charts allow you to present your data in a meaningful and intelligent manner that can be easily understood.

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

Need to add charts and graphs to your WordPress content? This step-by-step tutorial shows you how to use WP Visualizer – a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that lets you create, manage and insert stunning and dynamic charts and graphs into your WordPress posts and pages that:

• Your web visitors can interact with
• Lets you upload data from your hard drive or a web-based data source
• Will resize dynamically for mobile viewing

If you plan to display visual data like pie charts, comparison graphs or trending graphs that contain static information (e.g. historical data), an easier way to present your information is to create your charts or graphs using an image editing application, convert these into .jpg or .png images and then simply add your images to your pages.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

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

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

Visualizer

Visualizer Plugin URL

You can install the plugin inside your WP dashboard (we show you how to do this a little further below), or download the Visualizer plugin from the link below:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Visualizer Plugin Description

Visualizer is a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that allows you to create, manage and insert appealing 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 additional plugins are required.

Visualizer also comes with 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

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 your web design. Several 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 visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile web browsers without requiring the installation of any additional software.

How To Install The Visualizer Plugin

Inside your WP admin area, select Plugins > Add New from the main menu …

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

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

Click OK to continue …

Activate the plugin after installation is successful …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins area …

After your plugin has been activated, click on Library …

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

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

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

The next step is to add the charts and graphs to your library that you plan to publish to your pages and posts.

Visualizer Plugin Configuration

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

An image gallery displaying all of the built-in types of charts and graphs available will come up on your screen.

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

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

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

When creating your CSV data file, make sure that:

• The first row includes your column headings.
• The second row contains the series type (e.g. number, timeofday, 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, just refer to the sample supplied with the plugin.

Once you have created your CSV file, 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 from your hard drive select ‘From Computer‘ …

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

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

Upload CSV File From The Web

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

Depending on the chart or graph type you’ve picked, the plugin displays various customization options …

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 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 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 on the ‘Create Chart’ button …

Your new chart or graph 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 in just a moment, this lets you add graphs and charts to your WordPress content very easily …

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

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

Visualizer Plugin Usage

After creating a graph or chart and adding it to the Library, adding it to pages or posts 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 the content and click on the ‘Add Media‘ button …

Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …

Select the graph or chart to be added 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 post or page …

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

Your chart or graph will appear in the location you specified …

As mentioned previously, Visualizer also displays responsive elements for mobile viewing …

As you can see, WordPress Visualizer allows you to insert and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can edit your data and the changes will automatically be reflected throughout your website. This makes adding dynamic chart information in WordPress really efficient.

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

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 stunning and dynamic pie charts and graphs in WordPress with WP Visualizer plugin.

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