How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

You’ve heard the saying “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This certainly applies when you’re presenting or explaining complex data.

Using graphs and charts is useful for making technical data simpler to understand.

You can use tables to present data, but if you want people to try and make sense of complex information with numbers, percentages and comparisons quickly, then graphs and charts let you present data in an intelligent and meaningful way that can be easily processed.

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

Need to add charts or graphs to your WordPress posts? This tutorial shows you how to use WordPress Visualizer – a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that lets you create, manage and insert colorful and interactive charts into your WordPress posts and pages in a few mouse clicks that:

• Your site visitors can engage with
• Allows you to add data from your computer or an online data source
• Will dynamically resize for mobile browsers

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

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

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

Fortunately, there is a WordPress plugin 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 dynamic data.

Visualizer

Visualizer Plugin URL

You can install the plugin in your WP dashboard (see further down the page), or access and download the Visualizer plugin the WP plugin directory using the link below:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Visualizer Plugin Description

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

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 needed.

WordPress Visualizer also comes with a variety of charts 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

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 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 visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile devices without having to install additional software.

How To Install Visualizer

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

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

Locate the item in the search results area and click Install Now …

Click OK to continue …

Activate the plugin …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins area …

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 settings page …

After installing the plugin, the library section will be empty.

The next step is to add add charts and graphs to the library.

Plugin Configuration

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

A page will appear on 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 …

Your selected graph/chart type will open up in a new window.

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

When creating your CSV data file, ensure that:

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

The screenshot below shows how to format your data correctly …

If you are unsure about how to format your data CSV, just refer to the sample spreadsheet provided 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 computer select ‘From Computer‘ …

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

The plugin imports the data and displays it using the graph/chart type you have previously 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 the data, check 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 you have picked, the plugin will display a number of customization settings and options …

The plugin gives you full control over your chart or graph, and updates your display in real time …

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

• 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’re happy with the way your graph or chart is looking, click on the ‘Create Chart’ button …

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

Note that each new element is given a unique ID displayed in a shortcode. As you will see very soon, this allows you to embed charts and graphs into your WordPress posts very easily …

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

After a new chart or graph has been added to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit it, clone it, or trash it …

Visualizer Plugin Usage

After creating a new chart or graph and adding it to Visualizer, adding it to your content is really 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‘ …

Select the element to be added to your content and click the “insert” icon …

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

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

After updating your post, click ‘View post’ to see it …

You will see the visual element in the location you specified …

As mentioned previously, Visualizer also displays responsive visual elements for mobile 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 your changes will automatically be reflected throughout your site. This is very convenient if you’re working with dynamic graph data in WordPress.

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

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

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

Congratulations! Now you know how to easily create great-looking and interactive charts and graphs in WordPress with WordPress Visualizer.

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