How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

You’re probably familiar with the saying “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This is certainly true when you’re trying to present or explain complex information.

Using graphs and charts can help to make statistical data simpler and easier to understand.

You can present data with tables, but if you want people to try and make sense of complex data with figures, trends and relationships quickly, then charts and graphs allow you to present your information in an intelligent and meaningful way that can be easily understood.

Graphs and charts help present complex data so people can more easily understand it!

Need to add charts or graphs to WordPress? This tutorial shows you how to use the WordPress Visualizer plugin – a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that lets you create, manage and insert interactive charts and graphs into your WordPress posts and pages that:

• Your visitors can engage with
• Allows you to add data from your computer or an online source of data
• Will dynamically resize for mobile viewers

If you are displaying visual data like bar charts, comparison graphs or trending graphs that contain static information (e.g. historical data), a simple method you can use to display your data is to create the graphs or charts using an image editing application, convert these into images and then simply insert the image files into your pages or posts.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

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

Fortunately, there is a great WordPress plugin that is simple to install, easy-to-use and allows you to not only create appealing and dynamic graphs and charts, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with dynamic data.

Visualizer Plugin For WordPress

Visualizer URL

You can install the plugin inside your WP dashboard (we explain how to do this a little further down the page), or download Visualizer here:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Visualizer Plugin Description

WP Visualizer is a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that allows you to create, manage and insert colorful and mobile-responsive charts into your WordPress posts and pages in a few simple steps.

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 add-ons are required.

The plugin also contains a variety of charts 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

Visualizer is 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 further 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 visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile device browsers without requiring the installation of any extra plugins.

How To Install The Visualizer Plugin

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

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

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

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 main menu …

This brings up the plugin’s Visualizer Library options screen …

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

The next step is to add the charts and graphs to your library that you plan to publish to your posts or pages.

Plugin Configuration

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

A gallery displaying all of the built-in types of charts and graphs available will come up on your screen.

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

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

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

When creating your CSV data file, make sure that:

• Your first row contains your column headings.
• Your second row contains the series type (e.g. string, date, etc.)

The screenshot below shows how to format your data …

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

Once you have created your CSV file, select the data source (‘From Computer’ or ‘From Web’) in the ‘Upload CSV File’ section.

Upload CSV File From Computer

To upload your CSV file and data from your hard drive select ‘From Computer‘ …

Use the browser to 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 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, make sure that all of your information is correct (if not, click on the ‘Back’ button and reupload a new data file with the right data), and then click ‘Next‘ …

Depending on the chart or graph type you’ve picked, the plugin displays a number of customization settings …

The WordPress Visualizer plugin gives you total control over your chart or graph, and updates your display in real time …

For example, the pie chart offers various 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’re satisfied with the way your chart or graph is looking, click on the ‘Create Chart’ button …

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

Note that new visual elements are given a unique ID displayed as a shortcode. As you will see shortly, this lets you insert graphs and charts into your pages and posts very quickly …

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

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

Visualizer Plugin Usage

After creating a element and adding it to Visualizer, it’s really very simple to add it to your pages or posts.

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 the content and click on the ‘Add Media‘ button …

Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …

Find the element you want to insert into your content and click on the “insert” icon …

This adds a shortcode for the element into your content …

Once you have added your item, click on Publish to publish (or update) your page or post …

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

You will see your visual element in the location you specified …

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

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 site. This makes working with dynamic chart data in WordPress really easy.

The developers of this plugin have created a number of tutorials you can refer to for ways to edit, customize and use the Visualizer plugin.

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

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

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

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