How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

You’ve no doubt heard the old saying “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This is certainly true when you are trying to present and explain complex data.

Using graphs and charts is great for making technical data simpler and easier to grasp.

You can present information using tables, but if you want your audience to try and interpret complex information with figures, trends and comparisons quickly, then graphs and charts are perfect for helping them understand your information.

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

Need to add charts or graphs to WordPress? This step-by-step 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 interactive charts into your WordPress posts and pages in a few simple steps that:

• Your visitors can interact with
• Allows you to add chart or graph data from your hard drive or a web-based data source
• Is fully responsive for mobile viewing

If you plan to display visual data like pie charts, comparison data or trending graphs containing static information (e.g. historical data), a simple method you can use to present the data is to create the charts or graphs using a desktop application, convert these into .jpg and .png files and then simply add your image to your posts.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to easily add dynamic bar charts and graphs to your WordPress posts and 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 appealing and interactive graphs and charts, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with dynamic information.

Visualizer – WP Plugin

Plugin URL

You can install the plugin from your WP dashboard (we will show you how to do this a little further below), or download WP Visualizer the WordPress free plugin repository using the link below:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Visualizer Description

Visualizer is a simple, easy to use and powerful plugin that allows you to create, manage and embed interactive graphs into your WordPress posts and pages in 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 required.

The plugin also comes with 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

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 the look and feel of your website. 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 site visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile web browsers without having to install additional software.

How To Install WP Visualizer

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

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

Locate Visualizer in the search results section and click the “Install Now” button …

Click OK to proceed …

Activate the plugin …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins section …

Once your plugin has been activated, click on Library …

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

This takes you to the plugin’s Visualizer Library settings page …

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

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

Visualizer Plugin Configuration

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

An image gallery displaying all of the different types of 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 …

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

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

When creating your CSV data file, ensure that:

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

The screenshot below shows how to format your data as per the above requirements …

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

Next, select the 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‘ …

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

The plugin will now import the data and display 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 with the right data), and then click ‘Next‘ …

Depending on the chart or graph type selected, the plugin will display a range 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, 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 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 satisfied with how your chart or graph appears, click Create Chart …

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

Note that new visual elements are given a unique ID displayed in a shortcode. As you will see in a moment, this allows you to add charts and graphs to your WordPress content very quickly …

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

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

Visualizer Usage

After you have created a new graph or chart and added it to Visualizer, adding it to a post or page is quite 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 Add Media …

Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …

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

This will place a shortcode into your content …

After 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 …

The graph or chart will show up in the content …

As mentioned earlier, Visualizer also displays responsive charts and graphs for mobile browsers …

As you can see, WordPress Visualizer allows you to add and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can modify your data and your changes will automatically be reflected throughout your website. This makes working with interactive chart data in WordPress really easy.

The plugin developers have created a number of tutorials you can use to learn how to edit, customize and use Visualizer.

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

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

Congratulations! Now you know how to easily insert mobile-responsive bar charts and graphs into your WordPress posts and pages with WordPress Visualizer.

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