How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

No doubt you’re familiar with the 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 making technical or statistical data simpler to digest.

You can present information using tables, but if you want people to try and make sense of complex information with figures, trends or relationships more easily, then charts and graphs let you present the data in a meaningful and intelligent way that can be quickly processed.

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 tool that lets you create, manage and insert dynamic charts and graphs into your WordPress posts and pages that:

• Your web visitors can interact with
• Lets you add chart or graph data from your computer or a web-based source of data
• Is dynamically responsive for mobile viewers

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

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to embed interactive bar charts and graphs into your WordPress pages and posts 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 attractive and interactive charts and graphs, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with updateable data.

WP Plugin: Visualizer

Plugin URL

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

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Plugin Description

Visualizer is an easy-to-use and powerful plugin that lets you create, manage and insert appealing graphs and charts into your WordPress posts and pages in 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 that are optimized to address 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. Several options are available for each chart that allow you to fully customize their settings.

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 devices without having to install any additional plugins.

How To Install The Plugin

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

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

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

Click OK to go ahead …

Activate the plugin …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins page …

Once the plugin has been activated, click on Library …

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

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

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

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

Visualizer Configuration

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

You will see all of the different kinds of charts available.

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

Your selected graph/chart type will open up in a lightbox.

The next step is to upload a CSV file that contains your data …

When creating your CSV data file, ensure that:

• Your first row contains the column headings.
• Your second row includes 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 use the sample file that comes 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 the CSV file from your computer select ‘From Computer‘ …

Use the browser to locate and select your file and click on ‘Open‘ …

The plugin will now import the data and display it using the graph/chart type you have previously chosen …

Upload CSV File From The Web

For a tutorial that shows you 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 the information is correct (if not, click on the ‘Back’ button and reupload a new data file with the correct data), and then click ‘Next‘ …

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

The plugin gives you complete 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 graph or chart appears, click on the ‘Create Chart’ button …

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

Note that each element is given a unique ID displayed in a shortcode. As you will see very soon, this lets you add charts and graphs to your content easily and quickly …

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

After adding a new element to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit its details, duplicate it, or trash it …

Plugin Usage

Once you have created a new chart or graph and added it to the Library, it’s easy to insert it into a post.

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

This inserts a shortcode into your content …

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

Once the page has been updated, click ‘View post’ to see the result …

You will see the chart or graph in the content …

As mentioned earlier, Visualizer also displays responsive visual elements for mobile device viewers …

As you can see, WordPress Visualizer lets you insert and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can modify your data and the changes will automatically be reflected throughout your website. This makes adding dynamic chart data in WordPress really efficient.

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

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

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

Congratulations! Now you know how to easily add appealing and interactive charts and graphs to your WordPress pages with WP Visualizer plugin.

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