How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

You’re probably familiar with the adage “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This certainly applies when you are trying to present and explain complex information.

Graphs and charts can help to break up long passage of text, and make technical data more easily digestible.

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

Graphs and charts help present complex information so people can more easily understand it!

If you want to learn how to present dynamic visual content on your WordPress site using charts and graphs, this step-by-step tutorial will show you exactly how to create colorful and updatable charts to your WordPress posts that:

• Your visitors can engage with
• Allows you to add data from your computer or a web-based data source
• Dynamically resizes for mobile device viewers

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

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to easily add dynamic bars 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 users that is simple to install, easy-to-use and allows you to not only create beautiful and dynamic graphs and charts, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with updateable data.

WordPress Plugin: Visualizer

Visualizer Plugin URL

You can install the plugin from your WP dashboard (explained a little further down the page), or download the Visualizer plugin the WP plugin repository using the link below:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Visualizer Plugin Description

The Visualizer plugin is a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that lets you create, manage and embed mobile-responsive graphs into your WordPress posts and pages with just a few mouse clicks.

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 add-ons are needed.

Visualizer also provides a variety of built-in optimized for 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 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. A number of options are available for each chart that allow you to fully 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 blog or site visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile browsers without requiring the installation of any extra software.

How To Install The Plugin

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

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

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

Click OK to go ahead …

Activate the plugin after successfully installing it …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins page …

After the plugin has been activated, click on Library …

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

This brings up the plugin’s Visualizer Library options screen …

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 plan to insert into your content.

Plugin Configuration

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

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

Select the chart or graph 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 with your data …

When creating your CSV data file, make sure that:

• Your first row includes your column headings.
• Your second row includes the series type (e.g. number, timeofday, etc.)

The screenshot below shows how to format your data as per the requirements above …

If you are unsure about how to format your data CSV, simply use the sample CSV file provided with the plugin.

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

Upload CSV File From Computer

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

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

The plugin will import the data from the CSV file and display it using the graph/chart type you have 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, make sure that all of your information is correct (if not, click on the ‘Back’ button and reupload a new data file with the right data), and click ‘Next‘ …

Depending on the chart or graph type you have selected, the plugin will display various customization options and settings …

Visualizer gives you total control over your chart or graph, and updates your display in real time …

For example, the pie chart offers various configurable options, such as:

• 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 chart or graph, click Create Chart …

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

Note that every element is given a unique ID displayed in a shortcode. As you will see shortly, this lets you insert charts and graphs into your posts very easily …

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

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

Visualizer Plugin Usage

After creating a new chart or graph and adding it to the Library, adding it to posts and pages is really 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 your content and click on Add Media …

Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …

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

This will add a shortcode into your content …

After you have added the item, click on Publish to publish (or update) your content …

After updating your page, click ‘View post’ to see the end result …

You will see the item in the location you specified …

As mentioned earlier, the plugin also displays responsive graphs and 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 modify your data and the changes will automatically be reflected throughout your website. This is great if you’re working with dynamic chart data in WordPress.

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

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

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

Congratulations! Now you know how to add great-looking and interactive pie charts and graphs to your WordPress posts with WP Visualizer.

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