How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

No doubt you’re familiar with the old adage “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This certainly applies when you’re presenting or explaining data.

Charts and graphs help to make data more easily digestible.

You can use tables to present data, but if you want your audience to try and make sense of complex data with figures, percentages and comparisons quickly, then graphs and charts are perfect for helping them visualize your information.

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

If you want to display information visually and dynamically on your WordPress site like graphs and charts, this tutorial will show you how to create and add appealing and updatable charts to your posts that:

• Your visitors can engage with
• Allows you to add graph or chart data from your hard drive or a web-based data source
• Is dynamically responsive for mobile viewers

If you plan to display visual data like pie charts, comparison graphs or trending graphs containing static information (e.g. historical data), an easier option is to create the charts or graphs using an image editing application, convert these into images and then simply insert your files and an image into your post or page.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to create dynamic bar charts and pie graphs in your WordPress pages and posts 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 stunning and interactive charts and graphs, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with updatable information.

Visualizer – WordPress Plugin

Visualizer URL

You can install the plugin in your WordPress dashboard (explained further down the page), or access and download WP Visualizer from the link below:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Plugin Description

WordPress Visualizer is a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that allows you to create, manage and insert colorful and dynamic graphs into your WordPress posts and pages with just a few mouse clicks.

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 required.

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

Visualizer is a flexible and customizable plugin, 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 let you 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 site visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile web browsers without having to install additional plugins.

How To Install The Visualizer Plugin

Inside your WordPress 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 the plugin in the search results section and click Install Now …

Click OK to go ahead …

Activate the plugin after installing it …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins area …

Once your plugin has been activated, click on Library …

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

This brings up the plugin’s Visualizer Library options …

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

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

How To Configure The Plugin

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

You will be presented with all the types of graphs and charts available.

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

Your 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:

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

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

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

Next, 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 hard drive select ‘From Computer‘ …

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

The plugin imports the data and displays it using the graph/chart type you have previously selected …

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, 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 correct data), and click ‘Next‘ …

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

The WordPress Visualizer plugin gives you full control over 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 happy with how your chart or graph is looking, click Create Chart …

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

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

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

After a chart or graph has been added to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit it, clone it, or trash it …

Visualizer Plugin Usage

After you have created a new element and added it to the Visualizer Library, it’s easy to add it to pages or posts.

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 the 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 adds 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 page, click ‘View post’ to see the result …

You will see the chart in the location you specified …

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

As you can see, the Visualizer plugin lets you add and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can update your data and your changes will automatically be reflected throughout your site. This makes managing interactive graph data in WordPress very efficient.

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

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

Congratulations! Now you know how to insert eye-catching and mobile-responsive pie charts and graphs into your WordPress posts with WordPress Visualizer.

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