How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

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

Using graphs and charts is useful for breaking up long and difficult information, and making statistical data and information more easily digestible.

You can use tables to present data, but if you want people to try and interpret complex data with numbers, percentages or comparisons easily, then graphs and charts let you present your information in a meaningful and intelligent way that can be quickly and easily processed.

Charts and graphs help explain complex data so your audience can more easily interpret it!

Need to add charts and graphs to WordPress? This step-by-step tutorial shows you how to use WordPress Visualizer – an easy-to-use and powerful plugin for WordPress that allows you to create, manage and insert great-looking graphs and charts into your WordPress posts and pages that:

• Your visitors can interact with
• Allows you to add data from your computer or an online source of data
• Will dynamically resize for mobile viewers

If you plan to display visual data like bar charts, comparison data or trending graphs which contain information that is not going to change (e.g. historical data), a simple method you can use to present your data is to create your graphs or charts using a desktop application, convert these into .jpg or .png images and then simply add the files and an image to your content.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to easily create interactive bar charts and graphs in 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 eye-catching and mobile-responsive charts and graphs, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with updateable content.

WP Plugin: Visualizer

Visualizer URL

You can install the plugin inside your WordPress dashboard (explained further below), or download WordPress Visualizer from the link below:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Plugin Description

WP Visualizer is a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that allows you to create, manage and embed dynamic graphs and charts 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 extra addons are needed.

WordPress Visualizer also provides a variety of built-in 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 your web design. Several options are available for each chart that allow you to further 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 web visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile device browsers without requiring the installation of additional software.

How To Install The Visualizer Plugin

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

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

Locate the item in the search results screen and click Install Now …

Click OK to proceed …

Activate the plugin …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins page …

After your plugin has been activated, click on Library …

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

This brings up the plugin’s Visualizer Library settings …

When you first install the plugin, the library contains no charts.

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

How To Configure Visualizer

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

A page will appear in your browser displaying all of the default kinds of graphs and charts available.

Select the chart or graph type 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 that contains your data …

When creating your CSV data file, ensure that:

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

The screenshot below shows how to format your data …

If you are unsure about how to format your CSV file, simply download the sample spreadsheet supplied 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 computer select ‘From Computer‘ …

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

The plugin will import your data and display it using the graph/chart type you have previously selected …

Upload CSV File From The Web

For a tutorial that explains 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 the information is correct (if not, click on the ‘Back’ button and reupload a data file with the right data), and click ‘Next‘ …

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

The WordPress Visualizer plugin gives you complete control over your information, and updates your display in real time …

For example, the pie chart offers various configurable options, including:

• 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’re happy with the look of your chart or graph, click Create Chart …

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

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

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

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

Visualizer Usage

Once you’ve created a new graph or chart and added it to the Library, it’s easy to add it to a 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 graph or chart to be added to your content and click on the “insert” icon …

This adds a shortcode into your content …

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

Once your page has been published, click ‘View post’ to see the end result …

Your page or post should display the chart in the content …

As mentioned earlier, Visualizer also displays responsive charts for mobile devices …

As you can see, the Visualizer plugin lets you insert and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can update your data and the changes will automatically be reflected throughout your site. This makes working with interactive chart data in WordPress very efficient.

The plugin developers have created a series of step-by-step tutorials you can refer to to learn how to edit, customize and use Visualizer.

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

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

Congratulations! Now you know how to create attractive and mobile-responsive pie charts and graphs in WordPress with WP Visualizer.

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