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 are presenting and explaining complex information.

Using charts and graphs is useful for making technical or statistical data simpler and easier to digest.

You can present information using tables, but if you want people to try and make sense of complex data with figures, trends and relationships easily, then charts and graphs allow you to present the information in an intelligent and meaningful way that can be easily processed.

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

Need to add charts and graphs to WordPress? This tutorial shows you how to use WP Visualizer – an easy-to-use and powerful tool that lets you create, manage and embed dynamic graphs into your WordPress posts and pages that:

• Your site visitors can interact with
• Allows you to upload chart or graph data from your computer or a web-based data source
• Dynamically resizes for mobile device screens

If you plan to display visual data like bar charts, comparison graphs or trending graphs that contain static information (e.g. historical data), a simple method you can use is to create the graphs or charts using a desktop application, convert these into images and then simply insert your images into your pages or posts.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to add interactive bar charts and graphs to WordPress with no coding skills required, the easiest way to do this is to use a plugin.

Fortunately, there is a free WordPress plugin 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 dynamic content.

WordPress Plugin: Visualizer

Plugin URL

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

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Plugin Description

The WP Visualizer plugin is a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that lets you create, manage and insert beautiful and mobile-responsive graphs and 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 addons are required.

Visualizer 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 web design. Various 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 web visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile devices without having to install additional plugins.

How To Install The Plugin

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

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

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

Click OK to go ahead …

Activate the plugin …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins page …

After the plugin has been activated, click on Library …

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

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

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 will want to display in your content.

Visualizer Plugin Configuration

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

A gallery displaying all of the built-in kinds of charts and graphs available will load 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 open up in a lightbox.

The next step is to upload a CSV file that contains the data you want your chart or graph to be populated with …

When creating your CSV data file, ensure that:

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

The screenshot below shows how to format your data as explained above …

If you are not sure how to format your data CSV, simply download the sample file that comes 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 a CSV file from your computer select ‘From Computer‘ …

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

The plugin imports your data from the CSV file and displays it using the graph/chart type you have selected …

Upload CSV File From The Web

For a step-by-step tutorial that shows you 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 the information is correct (if not, click on the ‘Back’ button and reupload a data file with the right data), and click ‘Next‘ …

Depending on the chart or graph type you’ve chosen, the plugin will display a range of customization options and settings …

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

Your graph or chart 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 very soon, this allows you to easily embed graphs and charts into your content …

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

After a new element has been added to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit its details, clone it, or delete it …

Visualizer Plugin Usage

After creating a graph or chart and adding it to the Visualizer Library, adding it to a page or post is quite 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 the ‘Add Media‘ button …

Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …

Select the element you want to insert into your content and click the “insert” icon …

This will add a shortcode into your content …

Once you have finished adding your shortcode, click on Publish to publish (or update) your page or post …

Once the post/page has been updated, click ‘View post’ to see the end result …

Your page or post displays the item in the location where you placed the shortcode …

As mentioned previously, the plugin also displays responsive graphs and charts for viewing on mobile devices …

As you can see, Visualizer lets you add and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can modify your data and the changes will automatically be reflected throughout your site. This makes adding interactive graph data in WordPress really easy.

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

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

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

Congratulations! Now you know how to add colorful and dynamic bar charts and graphs to your WordPress pages with WP Visualizer plugin.

***

***