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 are presenting and explaining data.

Using charts and graphs can help to make technical data more easily digestible.

You can present information with tables, but if you want people to try and make sense of complex data with numbers, trends and relationships more easily, then charts and graphs are perfect for helping them interpret the data.

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

If you need to display information visually and dynamically on your WordPress site like charts and graphs, this tutorial will show you how to create appealing and updateable charts to your WP pages and posts that:

• Your web visitors can engage with
• Allows you to upload graph or chart data from your hard drive or an online source of data
• Will resize dynamically for mobile users

If you are displaying visual data like pie charts, comparison charts or trending graphs which contain information that is not going to change (e.g. historical data), a simple method you can use to add your information is to create your graphs or charts using a desktop application, convert these into jpg and png files and then simply insert the image into your content.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

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

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

Visualizer – WordPress Plugin

Visualizer URL

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

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Visualizer Description

The WordPress Visualizer plugin is a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that lets you create, manage and insert appealing and interactive charts 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 additional components are needed.

The plugin also comes with a variety of charts optimized for 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. Several options are available for each chart that allow you to further customize their look and feel.

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 web browsers without having to install any additional software.

Plugin Installation

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

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

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

Click OK to go ahead …

Activate the plugin …

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 choosing Media > Visualizer Library in your admin menu …

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

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

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

Visualizer Plugin Configuration

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

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

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

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

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

When creating your CSV data file, ensure that:

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

The screenshot below shows how to format your data as explained above …

If you are not sure how to format your CSV file, just download the sample that comes 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 your CSV file from your computer select ‘From Computer‘ …

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

The plugin will import the data and display it using the graph/chart type 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, 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’ve selected, the plugin displays a range of customization options …

Visualizer gives you complete control over your chart or graph, 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 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’re happy with the look of your chart or graph, click on the ‘Create Chart’ button …

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

Note that each element is given a unique ID displayed as a shortcode. As you will see very soon, this allows you to insert charts and graphs into your WordPress pages and posts easily and quickly …

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

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

Visualizer Usage

After creating a new chart or graph and adding it to the Visualizer Library, adding it to posts or pages is quite 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 Add Media …

Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …

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

This adds a shortcode into your content …

After you have finished adding your item, click on Publish to publish (or update) your content …

After the page/post has been published, click ‘View post’ to see the results …

Your post or page will display your graph or chart in the location you specified …

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

As you can see, WordPress Visualizer allows you to add and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can update your data and your changes will automatically be reflected throughout your site. This makes working with interactive chart data 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 Visualizer.

For additional tutorials on editing, copying, deleting and adding data to your charts, visit the website below:

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

Congratulations! Now you know how to easily add appealing and mobile-responsive charts and graphs to WordPress with WordPress Visualizer.

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