How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress
You’re probably familiar with the saying “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This certainly applies when you’re trying to present and explain data.
Using graphs and charts is a great way to break up content that has a disproportionate amount of text, and make technical or statistical data much simpler to grasp.
You can present data with tables, but if you want your audience to try and interpret complex information with numbers, trends or comparisons quickly, then graphs and charts allow you to present the information in an intelligent and meaningful way that can be quickly and easily understood.
Charts and graphs help you present complex data so people can more easily understand it!
Need to add charts and graphs to WordPress? This tutorial shows you how to use WP Visualizer – a simple, easy to use and powerful plugin that lets you create, manage and embed great-looking and dynamic 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 hard drive or an online source of data
- Will resize dynamically for mobile viewing
If you plan to display visual data like pie charts, comparison graphs or trending graphs that contain static information (e.g. historical data), a simple method you can use is to create your graphs or charts using an image editing application, convert these into images and then simply add the files and an image to your posts.
Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins
If you want to embed dynamic bar charts and pie charts into 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 that is simple to install, easy-to-use and allows you to not only create great-looking and dynamic graphs and charts, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with updateable data.
Visualizer Plugin For WordPress
Visualizer Plugin URL
You can install the plugin inside your WordPress dashboard (explained a little further below), or access and download Visualizer from the link below:
http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer
Plugin Description
WP Visualizer is a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that allows you to create, manage and insert appealing and interactive charts and graphs into your WordPress posts and pages with just a few mouse clicks.
The plugin 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.
WordPress Visualizer also contains a variety of charts 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
WordPress Visualizer 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 web design. A number of options are available for each chart that allow you to further 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 device browsers without requiring the installation of any extra software.
How To Install The Plugin
Inside your WordPress administration area, select Plugins > Add New from the main admin menu …
In the Add Plugins screen type in search for “visualizer” and click enter …
Locate the item in the search results area and click Install Now …
Click OK to continue …
Activate the plugin after successfully installing it …
You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins section …
After your plugin has been activated, click on Library …
You can also get to the plugin’s ‘library’ screen by selecting Media > Visualizer Library in the admin menu …
This brings up the plugin’s Visualizer Library options screen …
After installing the plugin, the library will contain no charts.
Your next step is to add the charts and graphs to your library that you plan to display in your posts or pages.
How To Configure The Plugin
To add a new graph or chart to the library, click on Add New …
An image gallery displaying all the kinds of graphs and charts available will come up on your screen.
Select the type of chart or graph you would like to create and click on the ‘Next’ button …
The selected graph/chart type will open up in a new window.
The next step is to upload a CSV file with your data …
When creating your CSV data file, ensure that:
- The first row contains your column headings.
- The second row includes the series type (e.g. string, timeofday, etc.)
The screenshot below shows how to format your data correctly …
If you are not sure how to format your CSV file, simply refer to the sample CSV file supplied with the plugin.
Once you have created your CSV file, 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 from your computer select ‘From Computer‘ …
Use the browser to locate and select your 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
For a tutorial that explains how to create, save and publish data to a Visualizer chart or graph using Google Spreadsheet, go here:
After importing your data, make sure 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 selected, the plugin will display various customization settings and options …
The plugin gives you complete control over your chart or graph, 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 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 are satisfied with the look of your graph or chart, click Create Chart …
The new graph or chart will be added to your ‘Visualizer Library’ section …
Note that every element is given a unique ID displayed in a shortcode. As you will see very soon, this allows you to add charts and graphs to your pages very easily …
Charts and graphs added to the Visualizer Library can easily be accessed by type …
After adding a new graph or chart to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit its details, duplicate it, or delete it …
Plugin Usage
After creating a new graph or chart and adding it to the Visualizer Library, it’s simple to add it to a post.
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 the content and click on Add Media …
Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …
Find the chart or graph to be inserted into your content and click the “insert” icon …
This will add a shortcode into your content …
Once you have finished adding your visual element, click on Publish to publish (or update) your content …
After publishing your post, click ‘View post’ to see the results …
You will see your chart or graph in the location you specified …
As mentioned previously, Visualizer also displays responsive visual elements for mobile browsing …
As you can see, the Visualizer plugin lets you insert and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can update your data and your changes will automatically be reflected throughout your website. This is a real time-saving feature of the plugin if you’re working with interactive graph data in WordPress.
The developers of this plugin 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, go to the website below:
Congratulations! Now you know how to easily create eye-catching and mobile-responsive pie charts and graphs in WordPress.
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"I have used the tutorials to teach all of my clients and it has probably never been so easy for everyone to learn WordPress ... Now I don't need to buy all these very expensive video courses that often don't deliver what they promise." - Stefan Wendt, Internet Marketing Success Group
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