How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

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

Charts and graphs are a great way to break up content containing lots of text, and make technical data more easily digestible.

You can use tables to present data, but if you want your audience to try and interpret complex data with figures, percentages or comparisons more easily, then graphs and charts let you present data in a meaningful and intelligent way that can be quickly understood.

Charts and graphs help you explain complex information so people can more easily understand it!

Need to add charts and graphs to your WordPress content? This tutorial shows you how to use WP Visualizer – an easy-to-use and powerful WP plugin that lets you create, manage and embed mobile-responsive graphs and charts into your WordPress posts and pages that:

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

If you are displaying visual data like pie charts, comparison data or trending graphs containing static information (e.g. historical data), an easier option is to create your graphs or charts using a desktop application, convert these into jpg and png files and then simply insert your image files into your site content.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to create dynamic bar charts and pie graphs in your WordPress posts with no coding skills required, the easiest way to do this is to use a plugin.

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

Visualizer Plugin For WordPress

Visualizer URL

You can install the plugin in your WP dashboard (we show you how to do this further below), or download Visualizer the WP free plugin repository using the link below:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Plugin Description

WordPress Visualizer is an easy-to-use and powerful plugin for WordPress that lets you create, manage and embed beautiful and mobile-responsive graphs and charts into your WordPress posts and pages in 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 additional plugins or add-ons are needed.

WordPress Visualizer also comes with a variety of charts 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

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 site’s design. A number of options are available for each chart that allow you to fully 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 visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile web browsers without having to install any additional software.

Plugin Installation

From your WP dashboard, select Plugins > Add New from the navigation sidebar menu …

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

Locate the plugin in the search results screen and click the “Install Now” button …

Click OK to proceed …

Activate the plugin after installing it …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins area …

After the plugin has been activated, click on Library …

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

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

When you first install the plugin, the library contains no charts.

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

How To Configure Visualizer

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

A gallery displaying all of the default kinds of graphs and charts 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 new window.

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

When creating your CSV data file, ensure that:

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

The screenshot below shows how to format your data correctly …

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

Next, select your 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‘ …

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

The plugin imports the data and displays it using the graph/chart type chosen …

Upload CSV File From The Web

For a step-by-step tutorial that explains 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 the information is correct (if not, click on the ‘Back’ button and reupload a data file with the right data), and then click ‘Next‘ …

Depending on the chart or graph type you have selected, the plugin displays a number of customization settings …

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

For example, the pie chart offers many 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 satisfied with how your chart or graph appears, click Create Chart …

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

Note that each element is given a unique ID displayed as a shortcode. As you will see shortly, this allows you to insert charts and graphs into your posts and pages quickly …

Charts and graphs added to the Visualizer Library can be accessed by their type …

After adding a graph or chart to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit it, clone it, or delete it …

Visualizer Plugin Usage

After creating a new graph or chart and adding it to Visualizer, it’s really very simple to insert it into your posts and pages.

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

This adds a shortcode into your content …

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

After publishing your page/post, click ‘View post’ to see the results …

Your chart or graph will appear in the location you specified …

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

As you can see, Visualizer allows you to add and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can change your data and your changes will automatically be reflected throughout your site. This is great if you’re managing dynamic chart data in WordPress.

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

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

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

Congratulations! Now you know how to create stunning and dynamic charts and graphs in WordPress with WordPress Visualizer plugin.

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