How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

You’re probably familiar with the old saying “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This certainly applies when you are presenting and explaining complex data.

Using graphs and charts is great for making technical or statistical data more easily digestible.

You can use tables to present data, but if you want your audience to try and interpret complex information with numbers, trends and relationships more easily, then charts and graphs are perfect for helping them interpret your data.

Charts and graphs help explain complex information so your audience can more easily interpret it!

Need to add charts or graphs to your WordPress posts and pages? This tutorial shows you how to use the WP Visualizer plugin – a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that allows you to create, manage and embed eye-catching graphs and charts into your WordPress posts and pages that:

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

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

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

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

WordPress Plugin: Visualizer

Visualizer URL

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

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Visualizer Plugin Description

WordPress Visualizer is a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that allows you to create, manage and insert beautiful and interactive graphs into your WordPress posts and pages in 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 components are required.

WordPress Visualizer also comes with 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

The plugin is also flexible and customizable, 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 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 web browsers without having to install any additional software.

Plugin Installation

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

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

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

Click OK to go ahead …

Activate the plugin …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins area …

After your plugin has been activated, click on Library …

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

This brings up the plugin’s Visualizer Library settings …

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

Your next step is to add add charts and graphs to the plugin library.

Visualizer Configuration

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

A page will appear on your browser with all the types 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 with all the data you want your chart or graph to be populated with …

When creating your CSV data file, make sure that:

• The first row includes the 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 requirements above …

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

Next, 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 from your hard drive select ‘From Computer‘ …

Locate and select your data file and 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 tutorial that explains 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, make sure that all of your information is correct (if not, click on the ‘Back’ button and reupload a new data file containing the right data), and then click ‘Next‘ …

Depending on the chart or graph type selected, the plugin displays various customization settings and options …

The plugin gives you complete 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’re happy with how your graph or chart looks, click on the ‘Create Chart’ button …

Your graph or chart will now be added to the ‘Visualizer Library’ section …

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

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

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

Visualizer Plugin Usage

After you have created a new element and added it to the Library, adding it to pages and 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 Add Media …

Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …

Find 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 …

After you have finished adding your visual element, click on Publish to publish (or update) your content …

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

The chart will display in the location you specified …

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

As you can see, Visualizer lets you add and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can update your data and your changes will automatically be reflected throughout your website. This is one of the great benefits of using the Visualizer plugin if you’re working with interactive graph information in WordPress.

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

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

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

Congratulations! Now you know how to create attractive and dynamic pie charts and graphs in WordPress with WP Visualizer plugin.

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