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 data.

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

You can present data using tables, but if you want people to try and make sense of complex information with figures, trends and relationships easily, then charts and graphs are perfect for helping them interpret the data.

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

If you need to present information visually and dynamically on your WordPress site using graphs and charts, this tutorial will show you how to create and add eye-catching and updatable charts and graphs to your posts that:

• Your visitors can interact with
• Lets you upload chart or graph data from your hard drive or an online data source
• Is fully responsive for mobile browsers

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

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to 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 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 (explained a little further below), or download the Visualizer plugin the WordPress free plugin repository using the link below:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Visualizer Description

WordPress Visualizer is an easy-to-use and powerful tool that lets you create, manage and insert mobile-responsive charts into your WordPress posts and pages in 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 extra components are required.

Visualizer also comes with a variety of built-in 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

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. A number of 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 blog or site visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile browsers without requiring the installation of extra plugins.

How To Install Visualizer

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

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

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

Click OK to proceed …

Activate the plugin after installing it …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins page …

Once the plugin has been activated, click on Library …

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

This brings up the plugin’s Visualizer Library screen …

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

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

Plugin Configuration

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

A page will appear in your browser displaying all the types of graphs and charts 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 lightbox.

The next step is to upload a CSV file with all the data you would like to populate your chart or graph 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. string, date, etc.)

The screenshot below shows how to format your data correctly …

If you are unsure about how to format your data CSV, simply refer to the sample file provided with the plugin.

Once you have completed this step, select the data source (‘From Computer’ or ‘From Web’) in the ‘Upload CSV File’ section.

Upload CSV File From Computer

To upload a CSV file and data from your computer select ‘From Computer‘ …

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

The plugin will now import the data from the CSV file and display it using the graph/chart type 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, go here:

• 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 new data file containing the correct data), and click ‘Next‘ …

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

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

For example, the pie chart offers various 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 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 the look of your chart or graph, click on the ‘Create Chart’ button …

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

Note that new elements are given a unique ID displayed as a shortcode. As you will see shortly, this allows you to add graphs and charts to your WordPress posts quickly and easily …

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

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

Plugin Usage

After creating a chart or graph and adding it to Visualizer, adding it to a page 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 Add Media …

Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …

Select the graph or chart you want to add to your content and click on the “insert” icon …

This inserts a shortcode into your content …

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

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

You will see the chart in the location you specified …

As mentioned previously, the plugin also displays responsive charts for mobile devices …

As you can see, WordPress 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 wherever you have inserted your charts, graphs, comparison bars , etc. in your site. This is great if you’re managing interactive graph information in WordPress.

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

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 easily add stunning and dynamic bar charts and graphs to your WordPress posts.

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