How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

You’ve no doubt heard the old saying “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This certainly applies when you’re presenting or explaining data.

Charts and graphs are a great way to make technical data more easily digestible.

You can use tables to present data, but if you want your audience to try and interpret complex data with figures, trends and relationships more easily, then graphs and charts are perfect for helping them understand your data.

Charts and graphs help you present complex information so people can more easily understand it!

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

• Your web visitors can interact with
• Allows you to add data from your hard drive or a web-based data source
• Dynamically resizes for mobile users

If you plan to display visual data like pie charts, comparison charts or trending graphs containing information that is not going to change (e.g. historical data), a simple method you can use is to create the graphs or charts using a desktop application, convert these into images and then simply insert the files and an image into your post or page.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to add interactive bars 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 free WordPress plugin that is simple to install, easy-to-use and allows you to not only create stunning and interactive graphs and charts, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with updatable data.

Visualizer Plugin For WordPress

Visualizer Plugin URL

You can install the plugin inside your WordPress dashboard (see a little further below), or download WP Visualizer the WordPress free plugin directory using the link below:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Plugin Description

The Visualizer plugin is a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that allows you to create, manage and insert stunning and interactive graphs and charts into your WordPress posts and pages with 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 plugins or add-ons are required.

WordPress Visualizer also provides a variety of charts that are optimized to address 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 the look and feel of your website. A number of options are available for each chart that allow you to 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 web visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile web browsers without requiring the installation of additional software.

Plugin Installation

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

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

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

Click OK to proceed …

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 main menu …

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

When you first install the plugin, the library contains no charts.

Your next step is to add the charts and graphs to your library that you will want to insert into your content.

How To Configure Visualizer

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

A gallery displaying all of the kinds of graphs and charts available will load on your screen.

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

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

The next step is to upload a CSV file containing all the data you want to populate your chart or graph with …

When creating your CSV data file, ensure that:

• Your first row includes the column headings.
• Your second row contains 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 not sure how to format your CSV file, just refer to the sample file supplied with the plugin.

Once you have done this, 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 from your computer select ‘From Computer‘ …

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

The plugin will import your data from the CSV file and display it using the graph/chart type you have previously selected …

Upload CSV File From The Web

To learn 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 the data, check that all of your information is correct (if not, click on the ‘Back’ button and reupload a data file with the correct data), and click ‘Next‘ …

Depending on the chart or graph type you have chosen, the plugin will display a range of customization settings …

Visualizer gives you full control over your information, and updates your display in real time …

For example, the pie chart offers many 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 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 chart or graph, click on the ‘Create Chart’ button …

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

Note that each visual element is given a unique ID displayed as a shortcode. As you will see in just a moment, this allows you to easily embed graphs and charts into your content …

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

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

Plugin Usage

After you’ve created a chart or graph and added it to the Library, adding it to a page is really 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‘ …

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

This will add a shortcode into your content …

Once you have added your visual element, click on Publish to publish (or update) your content …

After updating the post/page, click ‘View post’ to see the result …

Your page or post displays your chart or graph in your content …

As mentioned earlier, the plugin also displays responsive visual elements for mobile viewing …

As you can see, WordPress Visualizer lets you insert and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can modify your data and your changes will automatically be reflected throughout your site. This is a real time-saving feature of the plugin if you’re managing dynamic chart data in WordPress.

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

For additional 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 create stunning and interactive pie charts and graphs in WordPress.

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