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’re presenting or explaining complex information.

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

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

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

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

• Your site visitors can engage with
• Allows you to upload chart or graph data from your computer or an online data source
• Is responsive for mobile screens

If you plan to display visual data like pie charts, comparison bars or trending graphs that contain static information (e.g. historical data), a simple method you can use to present the data is to create the graphs or charts using an image editing application, convert these into images and then simply add your image files to your pages or posts.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to add dynamic bar charts and pie charts to 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 appealing and dynamic charts and graphs, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with updateable content.

WordPress Plugin: Visualizer

Plugin URL

You can install the plugin in your WP dashboard (see further below), or access and download the Visualizer plugin here:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Visualizer Description

WP Visualizer is a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that lets you create, manage and embed colorful and interactive charts into your WordPress posts and pages with 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 plugins or add-ons are needed.

WordPress Visualizer 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

The plugin 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 web design. Various 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 blog or site visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile devices without having to install extra plugins.

Plugin Installation

Inside your WP administration area, 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 screen 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 …

After the plugin has been activated, click on Library …

You can get to the plugin’s ‘library’ screen by choosing Media > Visualizer Library from your dashboard menu …

This takes you to the plugin’s Visualizer Library settings screen …

After installing the plugin, the library section will be empty.

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

Visualizer Configuration

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

A page will load in your screen displaying all the kinds of graphs available.

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

Your graph/chart type will pop up in a lightbox.

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

When creating your CSV data file, ensure that:

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

The screenshot below shows how to format your data correctly …

If you are unsure about how to format your CSV file, simply download the sample file supplied 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 your CSV file and data from your computer select ‘From Computer‘ …

Use the browser to locate and select your file and 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 the data, make sure that all of the information is correct (if not, click on the ‘Back’ button and reupload a data file containing the correct data), and then click ‘Next‘ …

Depending on the chart or graph type you’ve selected, the plugin displays a range of customization settings …

The plugin gives you total 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 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 satisfied with the look of your chart or graph, click Create Chart …

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

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

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

After adding a new element to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit its details, clone it, or trash it …

Visualizer Plugin Usage

After you have created a new graph or chart and added it to the Visualizer Library, adding it to a page or post is very 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 your content and click on the ‘Add Media‘ button …

Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …

Select the element to be inserted into your content and click the “insert” icon …

This will place a shortcode for the element into your content …

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

After your post has been updated, click ‘View post’ to see the result …

The visual element will show in the location you specified …

As mentioned previously, the plugin also displays responsive graphs and charts for mobile devices …

As you can see, WordPress Visualizer lets you add and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can modify your data and your changes will automatically be reflected wherever you have inserted your charts, graphs, comparison bars , etc. in your site. This makes adding dynamic chart information in WordPress really easy.

The plugin developers have created a series of step-by-step tutorials you can refer to for ways to edit, customize and use the Visualizer plugin for WordPress.

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

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

Congratulations! Now you know how to easily create great-looking and mobile-responsive charts and graphs in WordPress.

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