How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

You’ve no doubt heard the old saying “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This is certainly true when you are presenting or explaining complex data.

Using graphs and charts can help to break up content that contains lots of text, and make statistical data easier to understand.

You can use tables to present data, but if you want people to try and make sense of complex data with figures, percentages or relationships more easily, then graphs and charts are perfect for helping them visualize your information.

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

If you need to learn how to display dynamic visual content on your WordPress site using charts and graphs, this tutorial will show you how to create and add beautiful and updatable charts to your WordPress posts that:

• Your visitors can interact with
• Allows you to add data from your hard drive or an online data source
• Is responsive for mobile viewers

If you plan to display visual data like pie charts, comparison data or trending graphs containing static information (e.g. historical data), a simple method you can use is to create the graphs or charts using a desktop application, convert these into jpg and png files and then simply insert your images into your web content.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to easily create dynamic bars and pie graphs in your WordPress pages with no coding skills required, the easiest way to do this is to use a plugin.

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

WP Plugin: Visualizer

Visualizer Plugin URL

You can install the plugin from your WordPress dashboard (explained further below), or access and download Visualizer here:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Plugin Description

Visualizer is a simple, easy to use and powerful WP plugin that allows you to create, manage and embed eye-catching and dynamic charts and graphs into your WordPress posts and pages in just a few mouse clicks.

The plugin 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 components 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 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. 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 visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile devices without requiring the installation of additional software.

Plugin Installation

From your WP dashboard, select Plugins > Add New from the navigation sidebar menu …

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

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

Click OK to continue …

Activate the plugin after installing it …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins section …

After your 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 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.

Visualizer Configuration

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

A visual gallery displaying all of the different types of graphs and charts available will load 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 new window.

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

When creating your CSV data file, make sure that:

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

The screenshot below shows how to format your data correctly …

If you are not sure how to format your CSV file, just download the sample provided with the plugin.

Once you have completed this step, select the 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‘ …

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

The plugin will now 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, see the article below:

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

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

Visualizer gives you total 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 way your graph or chart looks, click Create Chart …

The graph or chart will be added to the Visualizer ‘Library’ …

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

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

After a new element has been added to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit its details, clone it, or trash it …

Visualizer Usage

After creating a graph or chart and adding it to the Library, adding it to posts and pages is really very 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 the ‘Add Media‘ button …

Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …

Find the chart or graph to be added to your content and click the “insert” icon …

This will place a shortcode into your content …

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

After publishing the page, click ‘View post’ to see the result …

Your page or post should display your graph in the location you specified …

As mentioned previously, the plugin also displays responsive charts 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 change your data and the changes will automatically be reflected throughout your website. This is one of the great benefits of using the Visualizer plugin if you’re working with dynamic graph data in WordPress.

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

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

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

Congratulations! Now you know how to insert great-looking bar charts and graphs into WordPress.

***

***