How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

You’ve no doubt heard the adage “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This certainly applies when you’re trying to present and explain complex data.

Using charts and graphs is useful for making statistical data a lot simpler to digest.

You can use tables to present data, but if you want people to try and interpret complex information with numbers, percentages and relationships quickly, then graphs and charts let you present data in a meaningful and intelligent manner that can be quickly understood.

Charts and graphs help present complex information so people can more easily understand it!

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

• Your visitors can engage with
• Lets you add graph or chart data from your computer or an online source of data
• Will resize dynamically for mobile device users

If you are displaying visual data like bar charts, comparison data or trending graphs that contain static information (e.g. historical data), a simple method you can use to present the information is to create the graphs or charts using a desktop application, convert these into .jpg and .png images and then simply insert your image into your site content.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to easily embed dynamic bar charts and pie 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 great free WordPress plugin that is simple to install, easy-to-use and allows you to not only create eye-catching and mobile-responsive graphs and charts, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with updateable information.

Visualizer

Visualizer URL

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

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Visualizer Plugin Description

WordPress Visualizer is a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that lets you create, manage and insert great-looking graphs into your WordPress posts and pages in just 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 plugins or add-ons are required.

WordPress Visualizer also contains a variety of charts 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

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 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 site visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile browsers without having to install any extra software.

How To Install The Plugin

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

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

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

Click OK to go ahead …

Activate the plugin after successfully installing it …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins page …

Once your plugin has been activated, click on Library …

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

This brings up the plugin’s Visualizer Library page …

When you first install the plugin, the library will contain no charts.

Your next step is to add add charts and graphs to the plugin library.

How To Configure The Plugin

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

A visual gallery displaying all of the different kinds of graphs available will load on your screen.

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

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

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

When creating your CSV data file, ensure that:

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

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

If you are not sure how to format your data CSV, just use the sample file provided 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 then click on ‘Open‘ …

The plugin imports your data and displays it using the graph/chart type you have 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, see the article below:

• How To Populate Data Using Google Spreadsheet

After importing your data, check 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 click ‘Next‘ …

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

Visualizer gives you total 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 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 are happy with the look of your chart or graph, click on the ‘Create Chart’ button …

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

Note that every 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 WordPress pages and posts very quickly …

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

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

Visualizer Usage

After creating a new chart or graph and adding it to Visualizer, it’s simple to add it to posts or 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‘ …

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

This will place a shortcode into your content …

Once you have finished adding the shortcode, click on Publish to publish (or update) your page or post …

After publishing your page, click ‘View post’ to see it …

Your post or page displays your item in the location you specified …

As mentioned previously, the plugin also displays responsive charts and graphs for mobile device users …

As you can see, 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 wherever you have inserted your charts, graphs, comparison bars , etc. in your website. This is great if you’re managing dynamic chart data in WordPress.

The plugin developers have created a number 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, refer to the website below:

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

Congratulations! Now you know how to easily insert dynamic charts and graphs into your WordPress posts.

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