How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

No doubt you’re familiar with the old saying “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This is certainly true when you are presenting and explaining data.

Charts and graphs help to break up long or difficult content, and make data easier to digest.

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

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

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

• Your site visitors can interact with
• Lets you add graph or chart data from your computer or a web-based data source
• Resizes dynamically for mobile devices

If you plan to display visual data like pie charts, comparison data or trending graphs which contain information that is not going to change (e.g. historical data), an easier way to add your information is to create your graphs or charts using a desktop application, convert these into jpg or png 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 pie graphs to your WordPress pages and posts with no coding skills required, the easiest way to do this is to use a plugin.

Fortunately, there is a great WordPress plugin that is simple to install, easy-to-use and allows you to not only create colorful and dynamic charts and graphs, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with dynamic data.

Visualizer

Plugin URL

You can install the plugin in your WP dashboard (explained further down the page), or download the Visualizer plugin here:

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 dynamic graphs into your WordPress posts and pages with 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 plugins are required.

The plugin also contains 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 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 site’s design. Various options are available for each chart that let you 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 web browsers without having to install additional software.

How To Install WordPress Visualizer

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

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

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

Click OK to proceed …

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 get to the plugin’s ‘library’ screen by selecting Media > Visualizer Library in your dashboard menu …

This brings up the plugin’s Visualizer Library screen …

After installing the plugin, the library contains no charts.

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

How To Configure The Plugin

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

A page will load in your screen displaying all of the different kinds of graphs available.

Select the type of chart or graph you would like to create and click on the ‘Next’ button …

The graph/chart type will pop up in a new window.

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

When creating your CSV data file, make sure that:

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

The screenshot below shows how to format your data …

If you are not sure how to format your CSV file, just use the sample file supplied with the plugin.

Once you have created your CSV file, 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 and data from your computer select ‘From Computer‘ …

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

The plugin will import the data and display it using the graph/chart type you have previously chosen …

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, 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 have selected, the plugin displays a range of customization options and settings …

The plugin gives you complete control of your information, and updates your display in real time …

For example, the pie chart offers many configurable options, including:

• 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 graph or chart, click on the ‘Create Chart’ button …

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

Note that each visual element is given a unique ID displayed as a shortcode. As you will see very soon, this allows you to add graphs and charts to your content very quickly …

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

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

Visualizer Plugin Usage

After you’ve created a new graph or chart and added it to the Visualizer Library, adding it to a page or post 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 your content and click on the ‘Add Media‘ button …

Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …

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

This inserts a shortcode for the element into your content …

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

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

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

As mentioned previously, Visualizer also displays responsive visual elements for mobile screens …

As you can see, WordPress Visualizer allows you to insert and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can update your data and the changes will automatically be reflected throughout your website. This is very convenient if you’re managing dynamic chart information in WordPress.

The developers of this plugin 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, copying, deleting and adding data to your charts, refer to the website below:

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

Congratulations! Now you know how to easily add appealing and mobile-responsive bar charts and graphs to your WordPress pages with WP Visualizer.

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