How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

You’ve heard the old saying “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This is certainly true when you are trying to present and explain data.

Using charts and graphs is useful for breaking up long text passages, and making data easier to digest.

You can use tables to present information, but if you want your audience to try and interpret complex information with numbers, trends or relationships quickly, then graphs and charts let you present the data in a meaningful and intelligent way that can be easily processed.

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

Need to add charts or graphs to WordPress? This tutorial shows you how to use WP Visualizer – a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that lets you create, manage and embed great-looking charts into your WordPress posts and pages in just a few mouse clicks that:

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

If you plan to display visual data like pie charts, comparison graphs or trending graphs containing information that is not going to change (e.g. historical data), an easier way to present the data is to create your charts or graphs using a desktop application, convert these into jpg and png images and then simply insert the files and an image into your pages or posts.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to easily create dynamic 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 free plugin for WordPress sites 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

Visualizer URL

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

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Plugin Description

WP Visualizer is a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that lets you create, manage and embed attractive and interactive charts and graphs into your WordPress posts and pages with a few simple steps.

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 addons 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 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 fully customize their settings.

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 devices without having to install extra plugins.

How To Install The Visualizer Plugin

From your WordPress administration area, select Plugins > Add New from the navigation sidebar menu …

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

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

Click OK to continue …

Activate the plugin …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins section …

Once your plugin has been activated, click on Library …

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

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

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

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

Visualizer Plugin Configuration

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

A gallery displaying all the kinds of graphs available will load on your screen.

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

The graph/chart type will pop up in a lightbox.

The next step is to upload a CSV file containing your data …

When creating your CSV data file, ensure that:

• The first row contains the column headings.
• Your second row contains the series type (e.g. number, date, 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, simply download the sample spreadsheet provided with the plugin.

Once you have completed this step, 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 file and click on ‘Open‘ …

The plugin imports your data and displays it using the graph/chart type you have 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 the data, make sure that all of the information is correct (if not, click on the ‘Back’ button and reupload a new data file containing the right data), and click ‘Next‘ …

Depending on the chart or graph type you have selected, the plugin will display a number of customization options and 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 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 satisfied with how your graph or chart is looking, click on the ‘Create Chart’ button …

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

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

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

After a new item has been added to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit it, clone it, or delete it …

Visualizer Plugin Usage

After creating a new graph or chart and adding it to Visualizer, it’s easy to insert it into a page or post.

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‘ …

Find the graph or chart you want to add to your content and click the “insert” icon …

This will place a shortcode into your content …

Once you have added the shortcode, click on Publish to publish (or update) your content …

After publishing your page, click ‘View post’ to see the result …

You will see your visual element in the location where you’ve inserted the shortcode …

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

As you can see, Visualizer lets you insert and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can change your data and the changes will automatically be reflected wherever you have inserted your charts, graphs, comparison bars , etc. in your site. This makes adding interactive chart information in WordPress really efficient.

The developers of this plugin have created a number of tutorials you can use to learn how to edit, customize and use WordPress Visualizer.

For additional 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 easily add stunning and dynamic bar charts and graphs to WordPress with WP Visualizer plugin.

***

***