How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

You’re probably familiar with the old saying “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This is certainly true when you’re presenting or explaining data.

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

You can use tables to present information, but if you want your audience to try and interpret complex information with figures, trends or comparisons quickly, then charts and graphs are perfect for helping them understand your information.

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

If you want to learn how to display information visually and dynamically on your WordPress site using graphs and charts, this step-by-step tutorial will show you exactly how to create and add attractive and updatable charts and graphs to your WP posts and pages that:

• Your visitors can engage with
• Lets you upload data from your hard drive or a web-based data source
• Will dynamically resize for mobile screens

If you plan to display visual data like pie charts, comparison graphs 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 the image files to your site content.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to easily create interactive bar charts 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 plugin for WordPress that is simple to install, easy-to-use and allows you to not only create beautiful and dynamic charts and graphs, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with dynamic information.

Visualizer – WP Plugin

Visualizer Plugin URL

You can install the plugin from your WP dashboard (explained further down the page), or access and download the Visualizer plugin the WordPress plugin directory using the link below:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Visualizer Plugin Description

Visualizer is a simple, easy to use and powerful WP plugin that lets you create, manage and embed colorful charts and graphs into your WordPress posts and pages in a few mouse clicks.

WordPress 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 required.

The plugin also comes with 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 let you further 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 site visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile browsers without having to install any extra software.

Plugin Installation

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

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

Locate the item 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 page …

After the plugin has been activated, click on Library …

You can also get to the plugin’s ‘library’ screen by choosing Media > Visualizer Library in your 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 the charts and graphs to your library that you will want to publish to your pages or posts.

How To Configure Visualizer

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

You will see all of the different types of charts and graphs available.

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

The graph/chart type will open up in a lightbox.

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

When creating your CSV data file, ensure that:

• The first row includes the column headings.
• Your second row includes the series type (e.g. string, datetime, etc.)

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

If you are unsure about how to format your CSV file, simply refer to the sample spreadsheet provided with the plugin.

Once you have done this, 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‘ …

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

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

Upload CSV File From The Web

For a step-by-step tutorial that shows you 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, check that all of the information is correct (if not, click on the ‘Back’ button and reupload a data file containing the correct data), and click ‘Next‘ …

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

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

For example, the pie chart offers various 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’re happy with the look of your chart or graph, click on the ‘Create Chart’ button …

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

Note that new elements are given a unique ID displayed as a shortcode. As you will see very soon, this lets you easily embed graphs and charts into your content …

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

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

Visualizer Plugin Usage

After creating a element and adding it to the Visualizer Library, adding it to a post or page is really 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‘ …

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

This will place a shortcode into your content …

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

Once your post/page has been updated, click ‘View post’ to see the results …

Your page or post displays your visual element in the location you specified …

As mentioned earlier, the plugin also displays responsive visual elements for mobile screens …

As you can see, Visualizer allows you to insert and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can edit your data and the changes will automatically be reflected throughout your website. This makes managing dynamic graph information in WordPress really efficient.

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

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 easily create attractive and dynamic charts and graphs in WordPress with WP Visualizer.

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