How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

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

Graphs and charts are a great way to break up long text passages, and make statistical data more easily digestible.

You can present data with tables, but if you want people to try and interpret complex information with figures, percentages or relationships quickly, then graphs and charts let you present the information in a meaningful and intelligent way that can be quickly and easily understood.

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

Need to add charts or graphs to your WordPress pages? 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 dynamic charts and graphs into your WordPress posts and pages with just a few simple steps that:

• Your visitors can interact with
• Lets you add graph or chart data from your hard drive or a web-based data source
• Is fully responsive for mobile screens

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

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to easily create interactive bar charts and pie charts in your WordPress posts with no coding skills required, the easiest way to do this is to use a plugin.

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

Visualizer

Visualizer Plugin URL

You can install the plugin inside your WP dashboard (explained a little further below), or download Visualizer here:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Visualizer Description

WordPress Visualizer is a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that allows you to create, manage and insert beautiful 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 additional plugins are required.

The plugin 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

Visualizer 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 site’s design. Several options are available for each chart that let you fully 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 web visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile device browsers without requiring the installation of any additional software.

How To Install WordPress Visualizer

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

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

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

Click OK to go ahead …

Activate the plugin …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins page …

After the 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 options …

When you first install the plugin, the library will contain no charts.

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

Visualizer Configuration

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

A visual gallery displaying all of the types of charts available will come up on your screen.

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

The selected graph/chart type will open up in a new window.

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

When creating your CSV data file, make sure that:

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

The screenshot below shows how to format your data …

If you are not sure how to format your data CSV, simply use the sample spreadsheet that comes with the plugin.

Once you have created your CSV file, select the data source (‘From Computer’ or ‘From Web’) in the ‘Upload CSV File’ section.

Upload CSV File From Computer

To upload the CSV file and data from your computer 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 chosen …

Upload CSV File From The Web

For a tutorial that shows you 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 your information is correct (if not, click on the ‘Back’ button and reupload a new data file containing the right data), and then click ‘Next‘ …

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

The plugin gives you total control over your chart or graph, 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 the 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 satisfied with how your chart or graph looks, click Create Chart …

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

Note that each element is given a unique ID displayed as a shortcode. As you will see shortly, this lets you easily insert graphs and charts into your content …

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

After a new item has been added to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit it, clone it, or delete it …

Plugin Usage

After you have created a chart or graph and added it to Visualizer, it’s simple to add it to a page or post.

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 Add Media …

Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …

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

This adds a shortcode for the element into your content …

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

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

The chart will appear in where you placed the shortcode …

As mentioned previously, Visualizer also displays responsive graphs for mobile device viewers …

As you can see, Visualizer allows you to insert and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can change your data and your changes will automatically be reflected wherever you have inserted your charts, graphs, comparison bars , etc. in your site. This is very convenient if you’re working with interactive chart information in WordPress.

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

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

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

Congratulations! Now you know how to easily add colorful and mobile-responsive pie charts and graphs to your WordPress pages.

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