How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

You’ve heard the saying “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This certainly applies when you are trying to present or explain complex information.

Using charts and graphs is a great way to break up long passage of text, and make technical data simpler to understand.

You can use tables to present information, but if you want your audience to try and make sense of complex information with numbers, percentages or relationships more easily, then charts and graphs let you 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!

If you want to learn how to display information visually and dynamically on your WordPress site like charts and graphs, this step-by-step tutorial will show you how to create beautiful and updateable charts and graphs to your WP pages and posts that:

• Your web visitors can engage with
• Lets you upload data from your computer or an online data source
• Will dynamically resize for mobile viewers

If you plan to display visual data like pie charts, comparison charts or trending graphs containing information that is not going to change (e.g. historical data), a simple method you can use is to create your charts or graphs using an image editing 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 add dynamic bar charts and graphs to WordPress with no coding skills required, the easiest way to do this is to use a plugin.

Fortunately, there is a great plugin for WordPress that is simple to install, easy-to-use and allows you to not only create colorful and interactive graphs and charts, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with updateable content.

Visualizer

Plugin URL

You can install the plugin inside your WordPress dashboard (we will show you how to do this a little further below), or access and download the Visualizer plugin here:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Visualizer Description

The WordPress Visualizer plugin is a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that allows you to create, manage and insert appealing and dynamic graphs 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 addons are required.

The plugin also contains a variety of built-in 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 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. Several options are available for each chart that let you 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 blog or site visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile devices without requiring the installation of any extra software.

How To Install The Visualizer Plugin

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

In the Add Plugins page type “visualizer” into the search field and hit enter …

Locate the item in the search results area and click Install Now …

Click OK to proceed …

Activate the plugin after installation is successful …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins page …

After the plugin has been activated, click on Library …

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

This brings up the plugin’s Visualizer Library section …

When you first install the plugin, this section will be empty.

Your next step is to add the charts and graphs to your library that you will want to publish to your posts and pages.

How To Configure The Plugin

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

An image gallery displaying all of the different kinds of charts available will come up on your screen.

Select the type of chart or graph 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 all the data you would like your chart or graph to be populated with …

When creating your CSV data file, make sure that:

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

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

If you are not sure how to format your CSV file, simply download the sample file supplied with the plugin.

Once you have completed this step, 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 and data from your hard drive select ‘From Computer‘ …

Use the browser to locate and select your file and then click on ‘Open‘ …

The plugin imports the data from the CSV file and displays it using the graph/chart type 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 your data, make sure that all of the information is correct (if not, click on the ‘Back’ button and reupload a data file with the correct data), and click ‘Next‘ …

Depending on the chart or graph type selected, the plugin will display a range 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 various 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 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 are satisfied with the look of your chart or graph, click Create Chart …

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

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

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

After an item has been added to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit it, duplicate it, or trash it …

Plugin Usage

After creating a graph or chart and adding it to the Library, it’s very easy to insert it into 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 the ‘Add Media‘ button …

Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …

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

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

Once you have added the item, click on Publish to publish (or update) your content …

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

You will see the visual element in your content …

As mentioned previously, Visualizer also displays responsive graphs for viewing on mobile devices …

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

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

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

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

Congratulations! Now you know how to insert eye-catching and dynamic pie charts and graphs into WordPress.

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