How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

You’ve heard the adage “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This certainly applies when you’re presenting or explaining data.

Graphs and charts are a great way to make technical or statistical data simpler to grasp.

You can present information using tables, but if you want people to try and interpret complex data with numbers, percentages or comparisons more easily, then charts and graphs allow you to present the data in an intelligent and meaningful manner that can be quickly processed.

Charts and graphs help you explain complex data so people can more easily understand it!

Need to add charts and graphs to your WordPress posts and pages? This tutorial shows you how to use WordPress Visualizer – an easy-to-use and powerful plugin that lets you create, manage and insert great-looking and interactive graphs into your WordPress posts and pages that:

• Your site visitors can interact with
• Allows you to upload data from your computer or an online source of data
• Is responsive for mobile screens

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

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to create interactive bars and pie graphs in 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 great free plugin for WordPress users that is simple to install, easy-to-use and allows you to not only create stunning and interactive charts and graphs, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with updateable information.

Visualizer

Visualizer Plugin URL

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

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Visualizer Description

The Visualizer plugin is a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that lets you create, manage and insert colorful and interactive graphs 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 extra plugins are needed.

The plugin also comes with a variety of built-in optimized for 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 also 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. Several options are available for each chart that allow you to 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 web visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile device browsers without having to install extra plugins.

Plugin Installation

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

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

Locate Visualizer in the search results area and click Install Now …

Click OK to go ahead …

Activate the plugin …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins area …

After your plugin has been activated, click on Library …

You can get to the plugin’s ‘library’ screen by selecting Media > Visualizer Library in the dashboard menu …

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

After installing the plugin, the library contains no charts.

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

Plugin Configuration

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

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

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

Your graph/chart type will pop up in a new window.

The next step is to upload a CSV file that contains all 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 the column headings.
• The second row includes the series type (e.g. string, date, etc.)

The screenshot below shows how to format your data as per the above requirements …

If you are unsure about how to format your CSV file, just download the sample spreadsheet supplied 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 a CSV file from your hard drive select ‘From Computer‘ …

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

The plugin will import your data and display it using the graph/chart type you have previously 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 your data, make sure that all of your information is correct (if not, click on the ‘Back’ button and reupload a data file with the right data), and then click ‘Next‘ …

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

The WordPress Visualizer plugin gives you complete control of your information, and updates your display in real time …

For example, the pie chart offers many configurable options, including:

• 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 happy with the look of your graph or chart, click on the ‘Create Chart’ button …

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

Note that each new element is given a unique ID displayed in a shortcode. As you will see shortly, this allows you to add charts and graphs to your posts and pages very easily …

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

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

Plugin Usage

After creating a new graph or chart and adding it to Visualizer, adding it to a post or page is very simple.

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 the “insert” icon …

This will add a shortcode into your content …

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

Once your post has been updated, click ‘View post’ to see it …

Your page or post should display your graph in the location where you placed the shortcode …

As mentioned previously, the plugin also displays responsive elements for mobile screens …

As you can see, the Visualizer plugin allows you to add and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can change your data and your changes will automatically be reflected wherever you have inserted your charts, graphs, comparison bars , etc. in your website. This makes managing interactive graph information in WordPress very easy.

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

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 insert appealing and dynamic bar charts and graphs into your WordPress posts and pages.

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