How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

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

Using graphs and charts is a great way to make technical data more easily digestible.

You can use tables to present information, but if you want people to try and interpret complex information with figures, trends or relationships quickly, then graphs and charts allow you to present your information in a meaningful and intelligent way that can be quickly processed.

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

Need to add charts and graphs to your WordPress posts and pages? This step-by-step tutorial shows you how to use WordPress Visualizer – an easy-to-use and powerful tool that lets you create, manage and insert mobile-responsive charts and graphs into your WordPress posts and pages in a few simple steps that:

• Your visitors can interact with
• Allows you to add chart or graph data from your hard drive or a web-based source of data
• Is dynamically responsive for viewing on mobile devices

If you are displaying visual data like bar charts, comparison bars 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 a desktop application, convert these into jpg and png images and then simply add your images to your page or post.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to easily insert interactive bar charts and pie graphs into WordPress pages and 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 colorful and mobile-responsive graphs and charts, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with updateable information.

Visualizer – WP Plugin

Plugin URL

You can install the plugin in your WP dashboard (explained a little further below), or download Visualizer from the link below:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Visualizer Description

WP Visualizer is a simple, easy to use and powerful plugin for WordPress that allows you to create, manage and insert eye-catching and interactive graphs and charts into your WordPress posts and pages in just 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 extra plugins are needed.

Visualizer also comes with a variety of charts 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 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. A number of options are available for each chart that allow you to 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 web visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile browsers without requiring the installation of additional software.

How To Install Visualizer

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

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

Locate Visualizer in the search results section and click the “Install Now” button …

Click OK to proceed …

Activate the plugin …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins area …

After the plugin has been activated, click on Library …

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

This brings up the plugin’s Visualizer Library screen …

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

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

How To Configure The Plugin

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

You will see all the kinds of charts and graphs available.

Select the chart or graph type 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 containing your data …

When creating your CSV data file, make sure that:

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

The screenshot below shows how to format your data …

If you are not sure how to format your data CSV, just refer to the sample CSV file provided with the plugin.

Once you have completed this step, select your data source (‘From Computer’ or ‘From Web’) in the ‘Upload CSV File’ section.

Upload CSV File From Computer

To upload your CSV file and data from your computer select ‘From Computer‘ …

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

The plugin will now import the data and display 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, see the article below:

• 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 containing the correct data), and then click ‘Next‘ …

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

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

For example, the pie chart offers various configurable options, including:

• General Settings – Configure settings for the chart’s title, 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 the way your chart or graph looks, click on the ‘Create Chart’ button …

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

Note that new elements are given a unique ID displayed in a shortcode. As you will see shortly, this lets you add graphs and charts to your pages and posts very quickly …

Graphs and charts 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 delete it …

Plugin Usage

After you have created a graph or chart and added it to the Visualizer Library, adding it to a page is 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 the content and click on the ‘Add Media‘ button …

Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …

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

This adds a shortcode for the element into your content …

After you have added your shortcode, click on Publish to publish (or update) your page or post …

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

Your chart will show in the location you specified …

As mentioned earlier, Visualizer also displays responsive charts and graphs for viewing on mobile devices …

As you can see, WordPress Visualizer allows you to insert and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can update your data and your changes will automatically be reflected wherever you have inserted your charts, graphs, comparison bars , etc. in your site. This makes working with interactive graph data in WordPress really easy.

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 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 easily insert colorful and dynamic pie charts and graphs into WordPress with WP Visualizer plugin.

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