How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

No doubt you’re familiar with the saying “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This is certainly true when you are presenting and explaining data.

Using charts and graphs is great for making technical or statistical data more easily digestible.

You can use tables to present information, but if you want people to try and make sense of complex data with numbers, trends or relationships quickly, then graphs and charts are perfect for helping them interpret your data.

Charts and graphs help explain complex data so people can more easily understand 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 insert beautiful charts and 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 a web-based source of data
• Will dynamically resize for viewing on mobile devices

If you plan to display visual data like pie charts, comparison bars or trending graphs containing information that is not going to change (e.g. historical data), an easier option is to create the graphs or charts using an image editing application, convert these into .jpg or .png files and then simply insert your files and an image into your site content.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to easily embed interactive bars and pie charts into WordPress with no coding skills required, the easiest way to do this is to use a plugin.

Fortunately, there is a free 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 updateable content.

Visualizer Plugin For WordPress

Visualizer Plugin URL

You can install the plugin from your WordPress dashboard (see a little further below), or access and download the Visualizer plugin here:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Visualizer Plugin Description

WordPress Visualizer is an easy-to-use and powerful WordPress plugin that allows you to create, manage and embed beautiful and mobile-responsive graphs into your WordPress posts and pages with a few simple steps.

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 add-ons are required.

WordPress Visualizer also comes with 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

WordPress 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. A number of options are available for each chart that let you 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 blog or site visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile web browsers without having to install additional software.

Plugin Installation

Inside your WP admin 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 area and click the “Install Now” button …

Click OK to continue …

Activate the plugin after installation is successful …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins page …

Once your plugin has been activated, click on Library …

You can also get to the plugin’s ‘library’ screen by selecting Media > Visualizer Library in the admin menu …

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

After installing the plugin, the library 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 posts or pages.

Visualizer Configuration

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

You will see all the different types of charts and graphs available.

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

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

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

When creating your CSV data file, make sure that:

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

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

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

Once you have done this, select the 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 file and then click on ‘Open‘ …

The plugin will import the data and display it using the graph/chart type you have previously selected …

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, go here:

• 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 right data), and then click ‘Next‘ …

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

Visualizer 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 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 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 happy with how your chart or graph looks, click on the ‘Create Chart’ button …

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

Note that each element is given a unique ID displayed in a shortcode. As you will see shortly, this lets you add graphs and charts to your WordPress pages easily and quickly …

Graphs and charts 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 creating a new graph or chart and adding it to the Visualizer Library, it’s 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 want to insert your visual element into your content and click on Add Media …

Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …

Select the graph or chart you want to insert into your content and click the “insert” icon …

This inserts a shortcode for the element into your content …

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

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

You will see the chart or graph in where you’ve inserted the shortcode …

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

As you can see, the Visualizer plugin allows you to insert and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can modify your data and the changes will automatically be reflected throughout your website. This makes working with interactive graph information in WordPress very efficient.

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

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

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

Congratulations! Now you know how to add stunning and interactive bar charts and graphs to your WordPress pages with WordPress Visualizer plugin.

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