How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

You’re probably familiar with the old saying “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This is certainly true when you’re trying to present or explain data.

Using graphs and charts is great for breaking up long passage of technical information, and making technical or statistical data more easily digestible.

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

Graphs and charts help explain complex data so your audience can more easily interpret it!

If you want to present dynamic visual content on your WordPress site using graphs and charts, this step-by-step tutorial will show you exactly how to create attractive and interactive graphs and charts to your pages and posts that:

• Your site visitors can interact with
• Allows you to add data from your hard drive or a web-based source of data
• Will resize dynamically for mobile users

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

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to create interactive bars and pie graphs in your WordPress content 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 attractive and dynamic graphs and charts, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with updatable data.

Visualizer – WP Plugin

Visualizer Plugin URL

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

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Visualizer Description

WordPress Visualizer is a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that lets you create, manage and insert interactive graphs 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 extra addons are needed.

Visualizer also contains 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. A number of options are available for each chart that let you further 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 web browsers without requiring the installation of additional software.

Plugin Installation

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

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

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

Click OK to go ahead …

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 main menu …

This takes you to the plugin’s Visualizer Library options screen …

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

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

Visualizer Plugin Configuration

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

A page will appear in your browser with all of the different types of graphs available.

Select the graph or chart 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 with all the data you want to populate your chart or graph with …

When creating your CSV data file, make sure that:

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

The screenshot below shows how to format your data …

If you are not sure how to format your data CSV, just refer to the sample that comes with the plugin.

Once you have completed this step, 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 and data from your hard drive select ‘From Computer‘ …

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

The plugin imports the data and displays it using the graph/chart type 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 your data, check that all of your information is correct (if not, click on the ‘Back’ button and reupload a data file containing the right data), and click ‘Next‘ …

Depending on the chart or graph type selected, the plugin displays a number of customization settings and options …

The WordPress Visualizer 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, 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 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 how your chart or graph appears, click Create Chart …

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

Note that every element is given a unique ID displayed as a shortcode. As you will see shortly, this allows you to insert graphs and charts into your pages easily …

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

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

Visualizer Plugin Usage

After creating a chart or graph and adding it to the Library, adding it to posts and pages is 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 the ‘Add Media‘ button …

Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …

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

This adds a shortcode into your content …

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

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

Your chart or graph will display in the location you specified …

As mentioned earlier, the plugin also displays responsive graphs and charts for mobile screens …

As you can see, Visualizer 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 makes managing interactive graph information in WordPress really efficient.

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

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

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

Congratulations! Now you know how to easily add colorful and mobile-responsive charts and graphs to WordPress with WordPress Visualizer plugin.

***

***