How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

No doubt you’re familiar with the old saying “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This certainly applies when you’re presenting or explaining complex information.

Using charts and graphs can help to make statistical data and information more easily digestible.

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

Graphs and charts help explain complex data so your audience can more easily understand it!

Need to add charts and graphs to WordPress? This step-by-step tutorial shows you how to use WordPress Visualizer – a simple, easy to use and powerful WordPress plugin that lets you create, manage and embed great-looking graphs into your WordPress posts and pages in a few mouse clicks that:

• Your web visitors can engage with
• Allows you to add data from your computer or an online source of data
• Is dynamically responsive for mobile screens

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

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

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

Fortunately, there is a great WordPress plugin that is simple to install, easy-to-use and allows you to not only create great-looking and interactive graphs and charts, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with updatable content.

WP Plugin: Visualizer

Visualizer Plugin URL

You can install the plugin from your WordPress dashboard (we show you how to do this a little further below), or download Visualizer the WordPress plugin directory using the link below:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Visualizer Description

WordPress Visualizer is an easy-to-use and powerful WordPress plugin that allows you to create, manage and embed stunning graphs and charts into your WordPress posts and pages in just 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 addons are needed.

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 a flexible and customizable plugin, 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 allow you to 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 web visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile browsers without requiring the installation of any additional plugins.

Plugin Installation

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

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

Locate Visualizer in the search results area and click the “Install Now” button …

Click OK to go ahead …

Activate the plugin …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins section …

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 takes you to the plugin’s Visualizer Library section …

After installing the plugin, the library will contain no charts.

Your next step is to add the charts and graphs to your library that you plan to display in your pages or posts.

How To Configure Visualizer

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

You will see all of the default kinds of graphs available.

Select the chart or graph type 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 your data …

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, datetime, etc.)

The screenshot below shows how to format your data correctly …

If you are not sure how to format your data CSV, just download the sample that comes 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 your CSV file from your hard drive select ‘From Computer‘ …

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

The plugin will import your data and display it using the graph/chart type you have previously 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 the data, make sure that all of your information is correct (if not, click on the ‘Back’ button and reupload a new data file containing the correct data), and click ‘Next‘ …

Depending on the chart or graph type you have selected, the plugin displays a number of customization options and settings …

The WordPress Visualizer plugin gives you complete control of your chart or graph, 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 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 happy with the look of your chart or graph, click Create Chart …

The 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 very soon, this allows you to insert charts and graphs into your pages very easily …

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

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

Visualizer Usage

Once you have created a graph or chart and added it to the Visualizer Library, it’s simple to insert it into a page.

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 the content and click on the ‘Add Media‘ button …

Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …

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

This adds a shortcode into your content …

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

After publishing your post, click ‘View post’ to see it …

You will see the chart in where you have added the shortcode …

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

As you can see, the Visualizer plugin lets you add and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can update 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 managing dynamic chart data in WordPress.

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

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

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

Congratulations! Now you know how to easily add colorful and interactive bar charts and graphs to WordPress.

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