How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

No doubt you’re familiar with the old adage “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This is certainly true when you are presenting or explaining complex data.

Charts and graphs can help to break up long text passages, and make technical data more easily digestible.

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

Graphs and charts help you explain complex data so your audience can more easily understand it!

If you need to display information visually and dynamically on your WordPress site using charts and graphs, this step-by-step tutorial will show you exactly how to create and add great-looking and updateable graphs and charts to your WordPress posts and pages that:

• Your web visitors can engage with
• Lets you upload chart or graph data from your computer or a web-based source of data
• Will resize dynamically for mobile browsers

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

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to easily insert interactive bar charts and pie charts into WordPress 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 attractive and interactive charts and graphs, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with dynamic content.

WordPress Plugin: Visualizer

Plugin URL

You can install the plugin from your WordPress dashboard (see further below), or access and download WordPress Visualizer the WordPress plugin directory using the link below:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Plugin Description

WordPress Visualizer is a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that lets you create, manage and embed dynamic graphs and charts into your WordPress posts and pages with just a few mouse clicks.

WordPress 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 additional plugins are needed.

Visualizer also contains 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

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 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 blog or site visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile devices without requiring the installation of any extra software.

Plugin Installation

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

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

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

Click OK to proceed …

Activate the plugin after successfully installing it …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins page …

Once the plugin has been activated, click on Library …

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

This brings up the plugin’s Visualizer Library settings …

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

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

Visualizer Plugin Configuration

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

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

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

Your 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, ensure that:

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

The screenshot below shows how to format your data as explained above …

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

Once you have done this, 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 computer select ‘From Computer‘ …

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

The plugin will import the data from the CSV file and display it using the graph/chart type selected …

Upload CSV File From The Web

For a step-by-step tutorial that shows you 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 the information is correct (if not, click on the ‘Back’ button and reupload a new data file with the correct data), and click ‘Next‘ …

Depending on the chart or graph type selected, the plugin will display a range of customization settings …

The WordPress Visualizer plugin gives you full 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 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 how your graph or chart is looking, click Create Chart …

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

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

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 …

Plugin Usage

After creating a element and adding it to the Library, adding it to a post or page is quite simple.

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 Add Media …

Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …

Find the element to be inserted into your content and click on the “insert” icon …

This inserts a shortcode for the element into your content …

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

After updating the page/post, click ‘View post’ to see it …

Your page or post should display your graph or chart in your content …

As mentioned previously, the plugin also displays responsive visual elements for viewing on mobile devices …

As you can see, WordPress Visualizer lets you add 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 website. This makes working with interactive chart information in WordPress really efficient.

The plugin developers have created a number of tutorials you can use to learn how to edit, customize and use Visualizer.

For additional tutorials on editing, cloning, deleting and adding data to your charts, go to the site below:

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

Congratulations! Now you know how to easily insert appealing bar charts and graphs into your WordPress posts and pages with WordPress Visualizer plugin.

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