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 and explaining complex information.

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

You can present information using tables, but if you want people to try and interpret complex information with figures, trends or comparisons more easily, then graphs and charts are perfect for helping them understand your data.

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

Need to add charts or graphs to your WordPress pages and posts? This step-by-step tutorial shows you how to use WordPress Visualizer – an easy-to-use and powerful tool that allows you to create, manage and embed attractive and dynamic graphs and charts into your WordPress posts and pages with just a few mouse clicks that:

• Your visitors can engage with
• Allows you to add chart or graph data from your hard drive or an online data source
• Is responsive for viewing on mobile devices

If you plan to display visual data like pie charts, comparison charts or trending graphs containing information that is not going to change (e.g. historical data), an easier option is to create the graphs or charts using a desktop application, convert these into images and then simply add your image files to your posts or pages.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to easily add dynamic bar charts and pie graphs to 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 that is simple to install, easy-to-use and allows you to not only create colorful and interactive charts and graphs, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with dynamic data.

Visualizer Plugin For WordPress

Visualizer Plugin URL

You can install the plugin from your WP dashboard (we explain how to do this further down the page), or access and download WP Visualizer the WP plugin directory using the link below:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Visualizer Description

WordPress Visualizer is a simple, easy to use and powerful plugin that lets you create, manage and embed eye-catching 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 additional add-ons are needed.

Visualizer also contains 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 your web design. A number of options are available for each chart that let you customize their look and feel.

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 browsers without requiring the installation of any extra software.

Plugin Installation

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

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

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

Click OK to continue …

Activate the plugin …

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 in your dashboard menu …

This brings up the plugin’s Visualizer Library screen …

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 will want to publish to your pages and posts.

How To Configure Visualizer

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

A page will appear in your browser with all of the built-in kinds of graphs available.

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

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

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

When creating your CSV data file, make sure that:

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

The screenshot below shows how to format your data as required …

If you are not sure how to format your data CSV, simply refer to the sample spreadsheet supplied 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 and data from your hard drive select ‘From Computer‘ …

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

The plugin imports your data and displays it using the graph/chart type 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, 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 data file containing the right data), and click ‘Next‘ …

Depending on the chart or graph type you have picked, the plugin will display a number of customization options and settings …

The WordPress Visualizer plugin gives you full control over 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’re happy with the way your chart or graph is looking, click on the ‘Create Chart’ button …

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

Note that every visual element is given a unique ID displayed in a shortcode. As you will see shortly, this allows you to add charts and graphs to your WordPress posts and pages quickly and easily …

Charts and graphs added to the Visualizer Library can be accessed by their type …

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

Visualizer Plugin Usage

After you have created a graph or chart and added 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 want to insert your visual element into your content and click on the ‘Add Media‘ button …

Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …

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

This will add a shortcode into your content …

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

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

You will see the graph or chart in the location you specified …

As mentioned earlier, Visualizer also displays responsive charts and graphs for mobile screens …

As you can see, the Visualizer plugin allows you to insert and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can modify your data and the changes will automatically be reflected wherever you have inserted your charts, graphs, comparison bars , etc. in your site. This is a real time-saving benefit of the plugin if you’re working with dynamic graph data in WordPress.

The developers of this plugin 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, cloning, deleting and adding data to your charts, visit the site below:

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

Congratulations! Now you know how to add eye-catching and mobile-responsive charts and graphs to WordPress.

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