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 complex information.

Using graphs and charts can help to make technical or statistical data a lot simpler to grasp.

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

Charts and graphs help present complex information so your audience can more easily interpret it!

Need to add charts or graphs to your WordPress posts? This tutorial shows you how to use WP Visualizer – an easy-to-use and powerful plugin for WordPress that lets you create, manage and insert colorful graphs into your WordPress posts and pages with a few simple steps that:

• Your web visitors can engage with
• Lets you upload chart or graph data from your computer or an online source of data
• Is fully responsive for mobile device browsers

If you are displaying visual data like pie charts, comparison data or trending graphs containing static information (e.g. historical data), a simple method you can use is to create the charts or graphs using an image editing application, convert these into images and then simply add your image files to your posts or pages.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

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

Fortunately, there is a free plugin for WordPress 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 dynamic information.

WP Plugin: Visualizer

Plugin URL

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

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Visualizer Description

Visualizer is a simple, easy to use and powerful WP plugin that allows you to create, manage and insert attractive and 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 components are required.

The plugin also contains a variety of built-in that are optimized to address 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 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 web design. Various options are available for each chart that allow you to further 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 web visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile web browsers without requiring the installation of any additional software.

How To Install The Plugin

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

In the Add Plugins screen type in search for “visualizer” and hit enter …

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

Click OK to proceed …

Activate the plugin …

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 the main menu …

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

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

The next step is to add the charts and graphs to your library that you plan to display in your pages or posts.

Visualizer Configuration

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

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

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

The selected graph/chart type will open up in a lightbox.

The next step is to upload a CSV file with all the data you would like to populate your chart or graph with …

When creating your CSV data file, make sure that:

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

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

If you are unsure about how to format your data CSV, just study the sample file that comes 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 then click on ‘Open‘ …

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

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, go here:

• How To Populate Data Using Google Spreadsheet

After importing the data, make sure that all of the 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 picked, the plugin displays various customization settings …

The plugin gives you total control of your chart or graph, 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 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 happy with the look of your graph or chart, click Create Chart …

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

Note that each element is given a unique ID displayed in a shortcode. As you will see very soon, this lets you easily embed charts and graphs into your content …

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

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

Plugin Usage

After you’ve created a new graph or chart and added it to the Library, adding it to a page or post is really very simple.

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 added to your content and click the “insert” icon …

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

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

After the post has been updated, click ‘View post’ to see the end result …

You will see your chart in the location where you have inserted the shortcode …

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

As you can see, Visualizer lets you add and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can change your data and the changes will automatically be reflected throughout your website. This makes adding dynamic graph data in WordPress very easy.

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

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

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

Congratulations! Now you know how to insert eye-catching and interactive bar charts and graphs into your WordPress posts and pages.

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