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 and explaining complex data.

Charts and graphs can help to make statistical data a whole lot easier to understand.

You can present information with tables, but if you want your audience to try and make sense of complex data with figures, trends and relationships easily, then graphs and charts are perfect for helping them interpret your information.

Graphs and charts help explain complex information so your audience can more easily understand it!

If you need to display dynamic visual content on your WordPress site using graphs and charts, this step-by-step tutorial will show you exactly how to create eye-catching and updateable graphs and charts to your pages that:

• Your visitors can engage with
• Allows you to add data from your hard drive or an online source of data
• Is dynamically responsive for mobile screens

If you plan to display visual data like pie charts, comparison bars or trending graphs that contain static information (e.g. historical data), an easier way to display this data is to create your charts or graphs using a desktop application, convert these into .jpg or .png files and then simply add the image to your web content.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to easily embed interactive bar charts and pie graphs into your WordPress pages with no coding skills required, the easiest way to do this is to use a plugin.

Fortunately, there is a great free WordPress plugin that is simple to install, easy-to-use and allows you to not only create eye-catching and mobile-responsive graphs and charts, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with dynamic content.

WordPress Plugin: Visualizer

Plugin URL

You can install the plugin inside your WordPress dashboard (see further down the page), or access and download Visualizer the WordPress free plugin repository using the link below:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Plugin Description

Visualizer is an easy-to-use and powerful WP plugin that lets you create, manage and embed great-looking and interactive graphs into your WordPress posts and pages with 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.

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

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. Several options are available for each chart that let you 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 blog or site visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile browsers without having to install additional plugins.

Plugin Installation

From your WordPress admin area, select Plugins > Add New from the main admin menu …

In the Add Plugins page type search for “visualizer” and click enter …

Locate the entry in the search results screen and click Install Now …

Click OK to go ahead …

Activate the plugin after successfully installing it …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins page …

Once your plugin has been activated, click on Library …

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

This brings up the plugin’s Visualizer Library settings page …

After installing 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 display in your posts and pages.

Plugin Configuration

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

A visual gallery displaying all the types of graphs and charts 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 …

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

The next step is to upload a CSV file that contains 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 the column headings.
• Your second row contains the series type (e.g. string, datetime, etc.)

The screenshot below shows how to format your data as per the requirements above …

If you are unsure about how to format your data CSV, just use the sample CSV file that comes with the plugin.

Once you have created your CSV file, 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 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 from the CSV file and displays it using the graph/chart type selected …

Upload CSV File From The Web

For a step-by-step 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 your data, check that all of your information is correct (if not, click on the ‘Back’ button and reupload a data file containing the right data), and then click ‘Next‘ …

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

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

For example, the pie chart offers various 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’re happy with how your graph or chart appears, click on the ‘Create Chart’ button …

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

Note that new elements are given a unique ID displayed in a shortcode. As you will see very soon, this allows you to easily embed charts and graphs into your content …

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

After adding a new element to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit its details, clone it, or trash it …

Visualizer Usage

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

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 the content and click on the ‘Add Media‘ button …

Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …

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

This inserts a shortcode for the element into your content …

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

After updating the post, click ‘View post’ to see the end result …

Your post or page displays your item in where you placed the shortcode …

As mentioned previously, Visualizer also displays responsive visual elements for mobile browsers …

As you can see, WordPress Visualizer allows you to 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 one of the great benefits of using the Visualizer plugin if you’re managing interactive graph information in WordPress.

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

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

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

Congratulations! Now you know how to easily insert colorful and interactive charts and graphs into WordPress.

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