How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

You’ve heard the old adage “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 and difficult content, and making technical data much easier to understand.

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

Charts and graphs help you explain complex data so people can more easily interpret it!

If you want to learn how to display dynamic visual content on your WordPress site like graphs and charts, this step-by-step tutorial will show you exactly how to create and add attractive and updateable charts and graphs to WordPress that:

• Your web visitors can engage with
• Allows you to upload data from your computer or an online source of data
• Resizes dynamically for viewing on mobile devices

If you are displaying visual data like pie charts, comparison charts or trending graphs containing static information (e.g. historical data), an easier way to add this information is to create your graphs or charts using a desktop application, convert these into images and then simply insert your images into your pages or posts.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to easily add dynamic bars and pie charts to WordPress 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 mobile-responsive charts and graphs, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with updateable data.

Visualizer

Plugin URL

You can install the plugin from your WP dashboard (explained further down the page), or access and download 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 insert great-looking charts and graphs into your WordPress posts and pages with 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 charts that are optimized to address 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 the look and feel of your website. Various options are available for each chart that allow you to 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 plugins.

Plugin Installation

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

In the Add Plugins page type search for “visualizer” and click enter …

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

Click OK to go ahead …

Activate the plugin after successfully installing it …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins page …

Once your 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 takes you to the plugin’s Visualizer Library page …

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

Your next step is to add add charts and graphs to your library.

Plugin Configuration

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

A page will appear in your screen displaying all the types of graphs available.

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

Your graph/chart type will pop up in a new window.

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:

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

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

If you are not sure how to format your data CSV, just use the sample CSV file provided with the plugin.

Once you have completed this step, 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‘ …

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

The plugin imports your data from the CSV file and displays it using the graph/chart type you have previously chosen …

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, see the article below:

• 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 new data file containing the right data), and then click ‘Next‘ …

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

The plugin gives you full control of 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 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’re satisfied with the way your chart or graph is looking, click Create Chart …

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

Note that each element is given a unique ID displayed as a shortcode. As you will see very soon, this lets you add charts and graphs to your content easily …

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

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

Visualizer Plugin Usage

Once you have created a new graph or chart and added it to the Library, it’s very easy to add it to a post or 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 your content and click on Add Media …

Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …

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

This will add a shortcode into your content …

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

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

The chart or graph will display in the location you specified …

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

As you can see, WordPress Visualizer lets you add and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can edit your data and your changes will automatically be reflected wherever you have inserted your charts, graphs, comparison bars , etc. in your website. This makes adding dynamic graph data in WordPress very easy.

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

For additional 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 mobile-responsive pie charts and graphs in WordPress.

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