How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

No doubt you’re familiar with the saying “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This certainly applies when you’re trying to present and explain complex information.

Using charts and graphs is useful for making statistical data and information more easily digestible.

You can present data using tables, but if you want people to try and interpret complex data with figures, trends or comparisons easily, then graphs and charts allow you to present the data in a meaningful and intelligent manner that can be easily understood.

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

Need to add charts or graphs to WordPress? This step-by-step tutorial shows you how to use WP Visualizer – a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that allows you to create, manage and embed great-looking charts and graphs into your WordPress posts and pages that:

• Your site visitors can interact with
• Allows you to add chart or graph data from your computer or a web-based source of data
• Is fully responsive for mobile screens

If you plan to display visual data like pie charts, comparison graphs or trending graphs that contain static information (e.g. historical data), an easier option is to create the graphs or charts using an image editing application, convert these into images and then simply insert your image files into your content.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to easily add dynamic bar charts 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 appealing and mobile-responsive graphs and charts, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with dynamic information.

Visualizer – WordPress Plugin

Visualizer Plugin URL

You can install the plugin inside your WP dashboard (see a little further down the page), or access and download WordPress Visualizer here:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Plugin Description

WordPress Visualizer is an easy-to-use and powerful WP plugin that allows you to create, manage and insert eye-catching and dynamic graphs and charts into your WordPress posts and pages in just 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 plugins are needed.

The plugin also contains a variety of charts that are optimized to address 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 web design. A number of options are available for each chart that let you 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 web browsers without having to install extra plugins.

How To Install The Visualizer Plugin

From your WordPress admin area, select Plugins > Add New from the dashboard menu …

In the Add Plugins page type in “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 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 main menu …

This brings up the plugin’s Visualizer Library page …

When you first install 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 display in your pages or posts.

How To Configure Visualizer

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

An image gallery displaying all of the different kinds of charts and graphs available will load on your screen.

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

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

The next step is to upload a CSV file with your data …

When creating your CSV data file, ensure that:

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

The screenshot below shows how to format your data as explained above …

If you are unsure about how to format your CSV file, simply use the sample CSV file provided 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 from your hard drive select ‘From Computer‘ …

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

The plugin will now import the 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, check that all of your information is correct (if not, click on the ‘Back’ button and reupload a new data file with the correct data), and click ‘Next‘ …

Depending on the chart or graph type you’ve picked, the plugin will display various customization options …

The plugin gives you full 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 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 happy with the way your graph or chart looks, click on the ‘Create Chart’ button …

Your new graph or chart will be added to your ‘Visualizer Library’ section …

Note that new elements are given a unique ID displayed as a shortcode. As you will see very soon, this allows you to add graphs and charts to your posts and pages quickly …

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

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

Plugin Usage

After creating a graph or chart and adding it to Visualizer, it’s easy to add it to a page.

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‘ …

Select the element to be added to your content and click on the “insert” icon …

This inserts a shortcode into your content …

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

After updating the page, click ‘View post’ to see the results …

Your page or post will display your visual element in the location where you’ve added the shortcode …

As mentioned earlier, Visualizer also displays responsive visual elements for mobile viewing …

As you can see, WordPress Visualizer lets you insert and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can update your data and the changes will automatically be reflected throughout your site. This makes managing dynamic graph information in WordPress really easy.

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

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

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

Congratulations! Now you know how to easily create beautiful and dynamic charts and graphs in WordPress.

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