How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

You’re probably familiar with the saying “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This is certainly true when you are trying to present or explain complex information.

Using graphs and charts is a great way to make technical or statistical data more easily digestible.

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

Charts and graphs help you explain complex information so people can more easily interpret it!

Need to add charts and graphs to your WordPress posts? This step-by-step tutorial shows you how to use WP Visualizer – a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that lets you create, manage and insert colorful and interactive charts into your WordPress posts and pages in a few simple steps that:

• Your visitors can interact with
• Lets you upload chart or graph data from your hard drive or a web-based data source
• Dynamically resizes for mobile browsing

If you are displaying visual data like pie charts, comparison data or trending graphs which contain information that is not going to change (e.g. historical data), an easier way to display this data is to create the charts or graphs using an image editing application, convert these into .jpg and .png images and then simply insert the image into your pages.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

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

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

Visualizer

Plugin URL

You can install the plugin inside your WP dashboard (explained a little further down the page), or download Visualizer the WordPress free plugin directory using the link below:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Plugin Description

WordPress Visualizer is an easy-to-use and powerful tool that allows you to create, manage and insert appealing and dynamic charts 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 components are needed.

Visualizer also provides a variety of charts 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 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 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 visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile devices without requiring the installation of any extra software.

Plugin Installation

From your WordPress administration area, select Plugins > Add New from the main admin menu …

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

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

Click OK to proceed …

Activate the plugin …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins section …

Once your plugin has been activated, click on Library …

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

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

After installing the plugin, this section will be empty.

The next step is to add add charts and graphs to your library.

Visualizer Plugin Configuration

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

An image gallery displaying all the different kinds of graphs and charts 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 …

The selected graph/chart type will pop up in a lightbox.

The next step is to upload a CSV file with all the data you want your chart or graph to be populated with …

When creating your CSV data file, ensure that:

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

The screenshot below shows how to format your data …

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

Once you have created your CSV file, 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 and data from your computer select ‘From Computer‘ …

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

The plugin imports the data and displays it using the graph/chart type chosen …

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 the information is correct (if not, click on the ‘Back’ button and reupload a new data file containing the right data), and click ‘Next‘ …

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

Visualizer gives you total control of your chart or graph, and updates your display in real time …

For example, the pie chart offers various 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 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 Create Chart …

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

Note that new visual elements are given a unique ID displayed in a shortcode. As you will see in just a moment, this allows you to easily embed charts and graphs into your content …

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

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

Visualizer Plugin Usage

After creating a new chart or graph and adding it to Visualizer, adding it to a 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 your content and click on the ‘Add Media‘ button …

Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …

Find the element you want to insert into your content and click on the “insert” icon …

This will place a shortcode into your content …

Once you have finished adding the element, click on Publish to publish (or update) your content …

Once your page/post has been published, click ‘View post’ to see it …

Your post or page should display the graph in the location where you’ve added the shortcode …

As mentioned previously, Visualizer also displays responsive charts for viewing on mobile devices …

As you can see, WordPress Visualizer lets you insert and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can change your data and the changes will automatically be reflected wherever you have inserted your charts, graphs, comparison bars , etc. in your site. This is great if you’re adding dynamic graph information 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, go to the website below:

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

Congratulations! Now you know how to easily create stunning and mobile-responsive bar charts and graphs in WordPress with WordPress Visualizer.

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