How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

You’ve no doubt heard the saying “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This is certainly true when you are presenting or explaining complex data.

Charts and graphs can help to make technical data easier to digest.

You can use tables to present information, but if you want your audience to try and make sense of complex data with figures, percentages or relationships quickly, then charts and graphs allow you to present your data in an intelligent and meaningful manner that can be easily understood.

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

Need to add charts and graphs to your WordPress posts? This step-by-step tutorial shows you how to use the WordPress Visualizer plugin – a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that allows you to create, manage and insert attractive and mobile-responsive graphs and charts into your WordPress posts and pages that:

• Your site visitors can interact with
• Lets you add data from your hard drive or a web-based source of data
• Is responsive for mobile screens

If you plan to display visual data like bar charts, comparison charts or trending graphs which contain information that is not going to change (e.g. historical data), an easier way to display the data is to create the graphs or charts using a desktop application, convert these into images and then simply add your images to your post or page.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to 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 free plugin for WordPress that is simple to install, easy-to-use and allows you to not only create appealing and mobile-responsive charts and graphs, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with updatable content.

Visualizer – WordPress Plugin

Visualizer Plugin URL

You can install the plugin from your WordPress dashboard (explained further below), or access and 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 tool that lets you create, manage and insert interactive graphs and charts into your WordPress posts and pages with a few simple steps.

The plugin 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 additional add-ons are needed.

WordPress Visualizer also comes with a variety of built-in optimized for 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 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 visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile device browsers without requiring the installation of extra software.

How To Install WordPress Visualizer

From your WP dashboard, select Plugins > Add New from the main admin menu …

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

Locate Visualizer in the search results screen 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 section …

After the plugin has been activated, click on Library …

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

This brings up the plugin’s Visualizer Library options …

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

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

Visualizer Configuration

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

An image gallery displaying all of the default types of graphs and charts available will come up on your screen.

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 containing your data …

When creating your CSV data file, ensure that:

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

The screenshot below shows how to format your data correctly …

If you are not sure how to format your data CSV, just use the sample spreadsheet 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 a CSV file and data from your computer select ‘From Computer‘ …

Use the browser to locate and select your data file and then 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, go here:

• 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 with the right data), and click ‘Next‘ …

Depending on the chart or graph type you’ve chosen, the plugin will display a number of customization settings and options …

The WordPress Visualizer plugin gives you total control of your information, and updates your display in real time …

For example, the pie chart offers many configurable options, such as:

• 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 satisfied with the look of your graph or chart, click on the ‘Create Chart’ button …

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

Note that every element is given a unique ID displayed in a shortcode. As you will see shortly, this allows you to easily embed graphs and charts into your content …

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

After adding an element to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit it, duplicate it, or trash it …

Visualizer Usage

Once you have created a element and added it to Visualizer, 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‘ …

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

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

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

Once the page has been updated, click ‘View post’ to see the result …

Your graph or chart will show in the content …

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

As you can see, Visualizer lets you insert 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 is very convenient if you’re adding dynamic chart information in WordPress.

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

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 attractive and mobile-responsive pie charts and graphs in WordPress with WP Visualizer.

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