How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

You’ve heard the adage “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This is certainly true when you’re trying to present and explain data.

Using charts and graphs is great for breaking up long text passages, and making statistical data more easily digestible.

You can present information using tables, but if you want people to try and interpret complex data with numbers, percentages or comparisons quickly, then graphs and charts let you present information in a meaningful and intelligent manner that can be quickly and easily understood.

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

If you need to learn how to present information visually and dynamically on your WordPress site like graphs and charts, this step-by-step tutorial will show you exactly how to create colourful and updateable charts to WordPress that:

• Your web visitors can engage with
• Allows you to upload graph or chart data from your computer or an online source of data
• Dynamically resizes for mobile browsers

If you are displaying visual data like bar charts, comparison data or trending graphs containing static information (e.g. historical data), a simple method you can use to display your information is to create the graphs or charts using an image editing application, convert these into images and then simply insert the images into your site content.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to easily add interactive bars and 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 users that is simple to install, easy-to-use and allows you to not only create beautiful and mobile-responsive graphs and charts, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with updatable content.

Visualizer

Visualizer Plugin URL

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

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Plugin Description

WordPress Visualizer is a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that lets you create, manage and insert appealing graphs into your WordPress posts and pages in just a few simple steps.

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 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 your site’s design. Various options are available for each chart that let you 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 site visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile devices without having to install extra software.

How To Install Visualizer

From your WordPress administration area, select Plugins > Add New from the main sidebar menu …

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

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

Click OK to proceed …

Activate the plugin after successfully installing it …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins section …

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 main menu …

This brings up the plugin’s Visualizer Library options …

When you first install the plugin, this section will be empty.

The next step is to add the charts and graphs to your library that you will want to display in your posts or pages.

Visualizer Configuration

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

A page will load in your browser with all of the kinds of graphs and charts available.

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

The 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 your chart or graph to be populated with …

When creating your CSV data file, make sure that:

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

The screenshot below shows how to format your data as required …

If you are unsure about how to format your data CSV, simply study the sample file that comes 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 a CSV file and data from your computer select ‘From Computer‘ …

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

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

Upload CSV File From The Web

To learn 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 new data file containing the correct data), and then click ‘Next‘ …

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

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

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

Note that new visual elements are given a unique ID displayed in a shortcode. As you will see in a moment, this lets you easily embed charts and graphs into your content …

Graphs and charts added to the Visualizer Library can be accessed by type …

After adding a new element to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit it, clone it, or trash it …

Visualizer Usage

After creating a graph or chart and adding it to the Library, it’s simple to add it to a page.

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 inserted into your content and click on the “insert” icon …

This will add a shortcode into your content …

After you have added your shortcode, click on Publish to publish (or update) your page or post …

Once the page has been updated, click ‘View post’ to see the results …

You will see the element in the location you specified …

As mentioned earlier, the plugin also displays responsive charts for mobile device viewers …

As you can see, the Visualizer plugin 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 website. This makes working with dynamic graph information in WordPress very efficient.

The plugin developers have created a number of tutorials you can use to learn how to edit, customize and use Visualizer.

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

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

Congratulations! Now you know how to create colorful and interactive bar charts and graphs in WordPress.

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