How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

You’re probably familiar with the adage “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This is certainly true when you’re presenting and explaining data.

Using charts and graphs is useful for making statistical data and information more easily digestible.

You can use tables to present information, but if you want your audience to try and interpret complex information with figures, percentages and comparisons easily, then charts and graphs allow you to present data in a meaningful and intelligent way that can be easily understood.

Graphs and charts help you explain complex data 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 how to create and add beautiful and interactive graphs and charts to your WordPress pages and posts that:

• Your web visitors can engage with
• Lets you upload graph or chart data from your hard drive or a web-based source of data
• Dynamically resizes for mobile browsing

If you plan to display visual data like pie charts, comparison graphs or trending graphs containing static information (e.g. historical data), a simple method you can use is to create your charts or graphs using an image editing application, convert these into images and then simply insert your image files into your post or page.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to add dynamic bars and graphs to WordPress with no coding skills required, the easiest way to do this is to use a plugin.

Fortunately, there is a free plugin for WordPress sites 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 updateable content.

Visualizer

Plugin URL

You can install the plugin in your WordPress dashboard (see further below), or access and download WordPress Visualizer the WordPress plugin directory using the link below:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Visualizer Description

WP Visualizer is a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that allows you to create, manage and embed beautiful and mobile-responsive graphs into your WordPress posts and pages in 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 extra plugins or add-ons are needed.

The plugin 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 your site’s design. A number of options are available for each chart that let you fully 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 blog or site visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile device browsers without requiring the installation of extra plugins.

How To Install Visualizer

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

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

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

Click OK to continue …

Activate the plugin after installing it …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins section …

Once the plugin has been activated, click on Library …

You can get to the plugin’s ‘library’ screen by choosing Media > Visualizer Library in your main menu …

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

When you first install the plugin, the library will contain no charts.

The next step is to add the charts and graphs to your library that you plan to insert into your content.

How To Configure The Visualizer Plugin

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

A visual gallery displaying all the different kinds of graphs and charts available will come up on your screen.

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

Your graph/chart type will pop up in a lightbox.

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

When creating your CSV data file, ensure that:

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

The screenshot below shows how to format your data as explained above …

If you are unsure about how to format your data CSV, just study the sample provided 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 hard drive select ‘From Computer‘ …

Locate and select your data 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 tutorial that explains 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, make sure that all of the information is correct (if not, click on the ‘Back’ button and reupload a data file containing the correct data), and click ‘Next‘ …

Depending on the chart or graph type you’ve chosen, the plugin will display a range of customization options …

The WordPress Visualizer plugin gives you total control of 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 satisfied with how your chart or graph appears, click on the ‘Create Chart’ button …

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

Note that every visual 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 posts easily and quickly …

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

After adding an element to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit its details, duplicate it, or delete it …

Plugin Usage

After creating a graph or chart and adding it to the Library, it’s easy to add it to a page.

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

This will add a shortcode for the element into your content …

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

After the post has been published, click ‘View post’ to see the end result …

Your item will display in where you placed the shortcode …

As mentioned previously, the plugin also displays responsive charts and graphs for mobile viewers …

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 the changes will automatically be reflected wherever you have inserted your charts, graphs, comparison bars , etc. in your website. This is great if you’re adding interactive chart information in WordPress.

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

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

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

Congratulations! Now you know how to easily insert beautiful and dynamic pie charts and graphs into WordPress.

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