How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

You’ve no doubt heard the saying “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This is certainly true when you are presenting and explaining data.

Using graphs and charts can help to make statistical data more easily digestible.

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

Charts and graphs help you present complex data so your audience can more easily understand it!

Need to add charts or graphs to WordPress? This tutorial shows you how to use the WP Visualizer plugin – a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that allows you to create, manage and embed attractive and dynamic charts into your WordPress posts and pages with a few mouse clicks that:

• Your site visitors can engage with
• Allows you to upload data from your hard drive or an online source of data
• Resizes dynamically for mobile viewing

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

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to easily create interactive bar charts and pie graphs in WordPress with no coding skills required, the easiest way to do this is to use a plugin.

Fortunately, there is a great free WordPress plugin that is simple to install, easy-to-use and allows you to not only create beautiful and interactive graphs and charts, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with updatable content.

Visualizer Plugin For WordPress

Visualizer URL

You can install the plugin inside your WordPress dashboard (see further down the page), or access and download the Visualizer plugin here:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Visualizer Description

WP Visualizer is a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that lets you create, manage and insert dynamic graphs and charts into your WordPress posts and pages with a few simple steps.

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 components are needed.

The plugin also provides 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 your web design. Various options are available for each chart that allow you to further 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 devices without requiring the installation of any additional software.

How To Install The Visualizer Plugin

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

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

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

Click OK to proceed …

Activate the plugin after successfully 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 selecting Media > Visualizer Library from the main menu …

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

After installing the plugin, the library will contain no charts.

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

How To Configure The Visualizer Plugin

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

You will see all of the kinds of graphs available.

Select the type of graph or chart 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 the data you want your chart or graph to be populated with …

When creating your CSV data file, ensure that:

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

The screenshot below shows how to format your data correctly …

If you are not sure how to format your data CSV, just refer to the sample supplied 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 from your hard drive select ‘From Computer‘ …

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

The plugin imports the data from the CSV file and displays 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, go here:

• 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 new data file containing the right data), and click ‘Next‘ …

Depending on the chart or graph type you have picked, the plugin displays a range of customization options and settings …

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

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

Note that new elements are given a unique ID displayed as a shortcode. As you will see shortly, this allows you to embed charts and graphs into your WordPress posts and pages quickly and easily …

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

After a graph or chart has been added to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit it, clone it, or delete it …

Plugin Usage

After you’ve created a new chart or graph and added it to Visualizer, it’s easy to insert it into your pages or posts.

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‘ …

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

This inserts a shortcode into your content …

After you have finished adding the visual element, click on Publish to publish (or update) your page or post …

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

The item will appear in where you have inserted the shortcode …

As mentioned previously, the plugin also displays responsive charts for mobile device browsing …

As you can see, the Visualizer plugin lets you insert and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can edit your data and the changes will automatically be reflected wherever you have inserted your charts, graphs, comparison bars , etc. in your site. This makes working with interactive chart data in WordPress really efficient.

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

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

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

Congratulations! Now you know how to insert mobile-responsive pie charts and graphs into WordPress.

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