How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

You’ve no doubt heard the old adage “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This is certainly true when you’re presenting or explaining complex information.

Using graphs and charts is great for breaking up long and difficult information, and making technical data more easily digestible.

You can use tables to present information, but if you want your audience to try and interpret complex information with figures, percentages or comparisons quickly, then graphs and charts let you present your information in an intelligent and meaningful way that can be quickly and easily understood.

Charts and graphs help explain complex information so people can more easily understand it!

Need to add charts or graphs to your WordPress content? This tutorial shows you how to use WP Visualizer – a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that allows you to create, manage and embed colorful graphs into your WordPress posts and pages with just a few simple steps that:

• Your visitors can engage with
• Lets you upload chart or graph data from your hard drive or a web-based source of data
• Will resize dynamically for mobile browsing

If you plan to display visual data like pie charts, comparison data or trending graphs containing information that is not going to change (e.g. historical data), an easier option is to create your charts or graphs using a desktop application, convert these into images and then simply add the image to your page or post.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to create dynamic bars and pie graphs in WordPress with no coding skills required, the easiest way to do this is to use a plugin.

Fortunately, there is a free plugin for WordPress sites that is simple to install, easy-to-use and allows you to not only create eye-catching and mobile-responsive charts and graphs, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with updateable content.

Visualizer

Visualizer URL

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

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Visualizer Description

Visualizer is a simple, easy to use and powerful plugin that allows you to create, manage and embed colorful and dynamic charts 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 extra components are needed.

WordPress Visualizer also comes with 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 the look and feel of your website. Various options are available for each chart that let you 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 browsers without having to install any additional plugins.

How To Install The Visualizer Plugin

From your WP dashboard, select Plugins > Add New from the dashboard menu …

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

Locate Visualizer in the search results area 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 page …

After your plugin has been activated, click on Library …

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

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

When you first install the plugin, the library contains no charts.

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

Plugin Configuration

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

An image gallery displaying all of the default types of graphs and charts 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 …

The graph/chart type will pop up in a lightbox.

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

When creating your CSV data file, make sure that:

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

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

If you are unsure about how to format your CSV file, just download the sample CSV file provided with the plugin.

Once you have completed this step, 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 computer select ‘From Computer‘ …

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

The plugin imports your data and displays it using the graph/chart type chosen …

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, make sure that all of your information is correct (if not, click on the ‘Back’ button and reupload a data file with the correct data), and then click ‘Next‘ …

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

The plugin gives you full control over your information, 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 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 way your graph or chart is looking, click on the ‘Create Chart’ button …

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

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

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

After an item has been added to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit its details, duplicate it, or trash it …

Visualizer Plugin Usage

After you’ve created a new chart or graph and added it to the Library, it’s really very simple to add it to your pages or posts.

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 graph or chart to be added to your content and click the “insert” icon …

This will place a shortcode for the element into your content …

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

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

Your post or page will display the graph or chart in the location you specified …

As mentioned earlier, the plugin also displays responsive graphs and charts for mobile device screens …

As you can see, Visualizer lets you insert and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can modify your data and the changes will automatically be reflected wherever you have inserted your charts, graphs, comparison bars , etc. in your website. This is one of the great benefits of using the Visualizer plugin if you’re adding interactive graph data in WordPress.

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

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

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

Congratulations! Now you know how to create attractive and mobile-responsive bar charts and graphs in WordPress with WordPress Visualizer.

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