How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

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

Using charts and graphs is great for making statistical data and information more easily digestible.

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

Graphs and charts help present complex information so people can more easily interpret it!

If you need to learn how to display information visually and dynamically on your WordPress site using graphs and charts, this tutorial will show you exactly how to create attractive and updatable charts to your WordPress pages that:

• Your site visitors can engage with
• Lets you add graph or chart data from your computer or an online data source
• Is dynamically responsive for mobile devices

If you plan to display visual data like pie charts, comparison bars or trending graphs that contain static information (e.g. historical data), a simple method you can use is to create the graphs or charts 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 easily add dynamic bars and graphs to your WordPress pages and posts with no coding skills required, the easiest way to do this is to use a plugin.

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

WP Plugin: Visualizer

Plugin URL

You can install the plugin in your WP dashboard (explained further down the page), or access and download Visualizer the WordPress plugin directory using the link below:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Visualizer Description

WP Visualizer is a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that allows you to create, manage and embed mobile-responsive charts and graphs into your WordPress posts and pages with just 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 extra plugins are needed.

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

Visualizer 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. Various 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 any extra plugins.

Plugin Installation

Inside your WP administration area, select Plugins > Add New from the main admin menu …

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

Locate the item in the search results area 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 area …

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 your dashboard menu …

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

After installing the plugin, the library will contain no charts.

Your next step is to add the charts and graphs to your library that you plan to publish to your posts and pages.

How To Configure The Plugin

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

A visual gallery displaying all of the built-in kinds of graphs and charts available will load on your screen.

Select the type of chart or graph 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 with all the data you want your chart or graph to be populated with …

When creating your CSV data file, ensure that:

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

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

If you are not sure how to format your CSV file, simply download the sample CSV file provided with the plugin.

Once you have created your CSV file, select your 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 click on ‘Open‘ …

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

Upload CSV File From The Web

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

Depending on the chart or graph type selected, the plugin will display a number of customization settings and options …

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

For example, the pie chart offers many 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 are happy with the way your graph or chart looks, click on the ‘Create Chart’ button …

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

Note that each element is given a unique ID displayed as a shortcode. As you will see in just a moment, this allows you to embed charts and graphs into your pages and posts very easily …

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

After adding a graph or chart 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, adding it to pages or posts 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 Add Media …

Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …

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

This inserts a shortcode into your content …

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

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

Your graph will show up in the content …

As mentioned previously, the plugin also displays responsive charts for mobile browsers …

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

The plugin developers 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, copying, deleting and adding data to your charts, refer to the site below:

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

Congratulations! Now you know how to easily create beautiful and interactive pie charts and graphs in WordPress.

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