How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

No doubt you’re familiar with the old saying “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This certainly applies when you are presenting and explaining complex information.

Using graphs and charts is a great way to break up long chunks of technical information, and make statistical 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 or comparisons more easily, then graphs and charts let you present your data in a meaningful and intelligent manner that can be quickly understood.

Graphs and charts help present complex data so your audience can more easily understand it!

Need to add charts or graphs to your WordPress content? This step-by-step tutorial shows you how to use the WordPress Visualizer plugin – a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that allows you to create, manage and insert appealing and interactive charts and graphs into your WordPress posts and pages that:

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

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

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

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

Fortunately, there is a great plugin for WordPress that is simple to install, easy-to-use and allows you to not only create colorful and dynamic graphs and charts, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with dynamic information.

Visualizer Plugin For WordPress

Visualizer URL

You can install the plugin from your WordPress dashboard (see a little further down the page), or download WordPress Visualizer here:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Plugin Description

WordPress Visualizer is a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that lets you create, manage and insert attractive and dynamic 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 add-ons are needed.

The plugin also provides 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

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 the look and feel of your website. Several options are available for each chart that allow you to further 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 browsers without requiring the installation of any extra software.

How To Install The Visualizer Plugin

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

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

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

Click OK to proceed …

Activate the plugin after installation is successful …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins section …

After your plugin has been activated, click on Library …

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

This brings up the plugin’s Visualizer Library settings …

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

Your next step is to add the charts and graphs to your library that you plan to insert into your content.

How To Configure Visualizer

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

A page will load on your screen with all of the different types of charts and graphs available.

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

Your graph/chart type will open up in a new window.

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

When creating your CSV data file, make sure that:

• Your first row contains your column headings.
• Your second row contains the series type (e.g. boolean, date, etc.)

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

If you are unsure about how to format your data CSV, simply use the sample 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 and data from your computer select ‘From Computer‘ …

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

The plugin imports the data from the CSV file and displays 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 your data, check that all of the information is correct (if not, click on the ‘Back’ button and reupload a data file containing the right data), and click ‘Next‘ …

Depending on the chart or graph type you’ve chosen, the plugin displays a number of customization settings and options …

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 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 on the ‘Create Chart’ button …

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

Note that new visual elements are given a unique ID displayed as a shortcode. As you will see in a moment, this allows you to insert graphs and charts into your WordPress content very quickly …

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

After adding an element to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit it, clone it, or delete it …

Plugin Usage

Once you’ve created a chart or graph and added it to the Visualizer Library, adding it to pages or posts is really simple.

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 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 shortcode, click on Publish to publish (or update) your content …

Once the page has been published, click ‘View post’ to see it …

You will see your element in the location you specified …

As mentioned previously, the plugin also displays responsive graphs and charts for mobile viewers …

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 adding dynamic chart data in WordPress really easy.

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

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

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

Congratulations! Now you know how to easily add beautiful and dynamic charts and graphs to WordPress with WP Visualizer plugin.

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