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 presenting or explaining complex information.

Using charts and graphs is useful for breaking up content that has too much text, and making technical data more easily digestible.

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

Charts and graphs help explain complex data so your audience can more easily interpret it!

If you want to learn how to present information visually and dynamically on your WordPress site using charts and graphs, this tutorial will show you exactly how to create colourful and updateable charts to WordPress that:

• Your web visitors can engage with
• Allows you to upload data from your hard drive or an online data source
• Will resize dynamically for mobile devices

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

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to insert dynamic bar charts and graphs into your WordPress posts and pages with no coding skills required, the easiest way to do this is to use a plugin.

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

WP Plugin: Visualizer

Visualizer URL

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

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Visualizer Description

The WP Visualizer plugin is a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that lets you create, manage and embed mobile-responsive charts into your WordPress posts and pages with just 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 extra add-ons are required.

WordPress Visualizer also provides a variety of built-in 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

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 site’s design. 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 web browsers without requiring the installation of additional software.

Plugin Installation

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

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

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

Click OK to continue …

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 the dashboard menu …

This takes you to the plugin’s Visualizer Library 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 plan to insert into your pages and posts.

Visualizer Plugin Configuration

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

A page will appear in your browser displaying all the different kinds of graphs available.

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

Your 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, make sure that:

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

The screenshot below shows how to format your data as required …

If you are not sure how to format your CSV file, simply use the sample supplied with the plugin.

Next, 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‘ …

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

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

The plugin gives you total control over your information, and updates your display in real time …

For example, the pie chart offers various configurable options, such as:

• General Settings – Configure chart title settings, 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’re satisfied with the way your graph or chart is looking, click on the ‘Create Chart’ button …

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

Note that new visual elements are given a unique ID displayed as a shortcode. As you will see shortly, this allows you to easily insert charts and graphs into your content …

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

After adding an item to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit it, clone it, or trash it …

Visualizer Usage

After you have created a new chart or graph and added it to the Visualizer Library, it’s quite simple to add it to posts and pages.

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 to be added to your content and click on the “insert” icon …

This adds a shortcode into your content …

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

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

Your visual element will appear in the content …

As mentioned previously, Visualizer also displays responsive charts for mobile viewers …

As you can see, WordPress Visualizer allows you to add and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can change your data and the changes will automatically be reflected wherever you have inserted your charts, graphs, comparison bars , etc. in your site. This makes adding interactive chart information in WordPress really efficient.

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

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 add attractive and dynamic pie charts and graphs to your WordPress content.

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