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’re trying to present or explain complex data.

Using graphs and charts is great for making statistical data easier to grasp.

You can use tables to present data, but if you want your audience to try and make sense of complex information with figures, percentages or comparisons easily, then charts and graphs let you present the information in a meaningful and intelligent manner that can be easily understood.

Graphs and charts help present complex information so your audience can more easily interpret it!

Need to add charts or graphs to your WordPress pages? This step-by-step tutorial shows you how to use WordPress Visualizer – a simple, easy to use and powerful WP plugin that allows you to create, manage and insert great-looking and dynamic graphs and charts into your WordPress posts and pages in a few mouse clicks that:

• Your site visitors can interact with
• Allows you to add data from your computer or a web-based source of data
• Is responsive for mobile viewers

If you plan to display visual data like bar charts, comparison bars 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 your image to your page or post.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to easily insert dynamic bars and graphs into WordPress with no coding skills required, the easiest way to do this is to use a plugin.

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

WP Plugin: Visualizer

Visualizer Plugin URL

You can install the plugin in your WP dashboard (we show you how to do this further below), or download the WP Visualizer plugin the WP free plugin repository using the link below:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Plugin Description

The Visualizer plugin is a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that allows you to create, manage and insert interactive charts and graphs into your WordPress posts and pages with 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 additional plugins or add-ons are required.

The plugin also provides 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

The plugin 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.

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 web browsers without having to install additional software.

Plugin Installation

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

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

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

Click OK to go ahead …

Activate the plugin …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins page …

After the plugin has been activated, click on Library …

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

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

After installing the plugin, the library will contain no charts.

The next step is to add the charts and graphs to your library that you plan to display in your content.

How To Configure Visualizer

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

A gallery displaying all of the different types of charts and graphs available will load on your screen.

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

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

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

If you are not sure how to format your CSV file, just download the sample spreadsheet that comes 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 your CSV file from your hard drive select ‘From Computer‘ …

Locate and select your file and click on ‘Open‘ …

The plugin imports the data and displays 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, see the article below:

• 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 new data file containing the correct data), and then click ‘Next‘ …

Depending on the chart or graph type selected, the plugin displays a number of customization settings and options …

The WordPress Visualizer plugin gives you full 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 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 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 satisfied with how your chart or graph appears, click on the ‘Create Chart’ button …

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

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

Graphs and charts added to the Visualizer Library can be accessed by type …

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

Plugin Usage

After creating a new element and adding it to the Visualizer Library, it’s easy to add it to a post or page.

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 the ‘Add Media‘ button …

Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …

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

This inserts a shortcode into your content …

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

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

You will see your graph in the location where you’ve inserted the shortcode …

As mentioned earlier, the plugin also displays responsive graphs for mobile devices …

As you can see, WordPress Visualizer allows you to insert 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 interactive graph information in WordPress really easy.

The developers of this plugin have created a number of step-by-step tutorials you can refer to to learn how to edit, customize and use the Visualizer 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 easily create stunning and dynamic pie charts and graphs in WordPress with WordPress Visualizer.

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