How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

You’re probably familiar with the old saying “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This certainly applies when you’re trying to present and explain complex data.

Using graphs and charts can help to make statistical data and information much easier to understand.

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

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

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

• Your site visitors can engage with
• Allows you to upload chart or graph data from your computer or a web-based data source
• Will dynamically resize for mobile browsing

If you are displaying visual data like pie charts, comparison data or trending graphs that contain static information (e.g. historical data), a simple method you can use to display this information is to create your charts or graphs using a desktop application, convert these into images and then simply insert your images into your posts.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to easily add dynamic bars and pie graphs to your WordPress content with no coding skills required, the easiest way to do this is to use a plugin.

Fortunately, there is a free WordPress plugin that is simple to install, easy-to-use and allows you to not only create appealing and interactive graphs and charts, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with dynamic data.

Visualizer

Visualizer Plugin URL

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

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Visualizer Plugin Description

WordPress Visualizer is a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that lets you create, manage and insert mobile-responsive charts and graphs into your WordPress posts and pages with 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 required.

WordPress Visualizer also comes with a variety of charts 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 web design. Several options are available for each chart that let you 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 web visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile devices without having to install extra software.

Plugin Installation

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

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

Locate the entry 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 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 your dashboard menu …

This brings up the plugin’s Visualizer Library section …

When you first install the plugin, the library will contain no charts.

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

Plugin Configuration

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

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

Select the graph or chart type 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 containing all the data you want to populate your chart or graph with …

When creating your CSV data file, make sure that:

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

The screenshot below shows how to format your data correctly …

If you are not sure how to format your data CSV, just use the sample spreadsheet supplied 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 the CSV file from your computer select ‘From Computer‘ …

Use the browser to locate and select your file and then 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

To learn 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, make sure that all of your information is correct (if not, click on the ‘Back’ button and reupload a new data file with the correct data), and then click ‘Next‘ …

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

The plugin gives you total control over your chart or graph, and updates your display in real time …

For example, the pie chart offers many configurable options, such as:

• 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 satisfied with the way your chart or graph looks, click Create Chart …

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

Note that new visual 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 pages and posts very easily …

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

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

Plugin Usage

Once you’ve created a new graph or chart and added it to the Library, adding it to a post or 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 your content and click on Add Media …

Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …

Select the element you want to add to your content and click the “insert” icon …

This will add a shortcode for the element into your content …

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

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

Your visual element will display in your content …

As mentioned earlier, Visualizer also displays responsive charts and graphs for mobile viewers …

As you can see, the Visualizer plugin allows you to add 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 website. This makes managing dynamic chart information in WordPress really easy.

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

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

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

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

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