How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

You’ve heard the old adage “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This is certainly true when you are presenting or explaining complex information.

Using charts and graphs is useful for breaking up long text passages, and making statistical data and information a lot easier to understand.

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

Charts and graphs help present complex data so people can more easily understand it!

If you need to display dynamic visual content on your WordPress site using graphs and charts, this step-by-step tutorial will show you exactly how to create and add great-looking and updateable graphs and charts to WordPress that:

• Your site visitors can engage with
• Allows you to upload data from your computer or an online source of data
• Is responsive for mobile viewing

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

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to insert dynamic bar charts and pie graphs into 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 users that is simple to install, easy-to-use and allows you to not only create eye-catching and interactive charts and graphs, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with dynamic information.

Visualizer – WordPress Plugin

Visualizer Plugin URL

You can install the plugin from your WP dashboard (see further down the page), or access and download Visualizer from the link below:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Visualizer Plugin Description

WP Visualizer is a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that allows you to create, manage and embed appealing and interactive charts and graphs into your WordPress posts and pages in 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 additional add-ons are required.

WordPress Visualizer also provides 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 a flexible and customizable plugin, 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 let you 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 blog or site visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile device browsers without having to install additional plugins.

Plugin Installation

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

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

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

Click OK to continue …

Activate the plugin …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins section …

Once the plugin has been activated, click on Library …

You can also get to the plugin’s ‘library’ screen by selecting Media > Visualizer Library from your dashboard 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 Configuration

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

You will be presented with all of the different types of graphs and charts 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 with the data you would like to populate your chart or graph with …

When creating your CSV data file, ensure that:

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

The screenshot below shows how to format your data …

If you are not sure how to format your data CSV, just refer to the sample supplied with the plugin.

Once you have completed this step, 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 computer select ‘From Computer‘ …

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

The plugin will now import the data and display it using the graph/chart type selected …

Upload CSV File From The Web

For a 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 your information is correct (if not, click on the ‘Back’ button and reupload a new data file containing the right data), and then click ‘Next‘ …

Depending on the chart or graph type you’ve chosen, the plugin will display various customization options …

The plugin gives you full control of 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 satisfied with the way your graph or chart looks, click Create Chart …

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

Note that each new element is given a unique ID displayed as a shortcode. As you will see shortly, this lets you add graphs and charts to your posts and pages easily and quickly …

Graphs and charts added to the Visualizer Library can be accessed by type …

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

Visualizer Plugin Usage

After creating a new element and adding it to the Visualizer Library, it’s very easy to add it to your pages or posts.

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 element to be added to your content and click the “insert” icon …

This adds a shortcode into your content …

Once you have finished adding your visual element, click on Publish to publish (or update) your content …

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

You will see the graph or chart in the location where you have added the shortcode …

As mentioned earlier, the plugin also displays responsive visual elements for mobile device browsers …

As you can see, the Visualizer plugin allows you to add and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can edit your data and the changes will automatically be reflected throughout your website. This is a real time-saver if you’re managing interactive chart information in WordPress.

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

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

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

Congratulations! Now you know how to add great-looking and dynamic bar charts and graphs to your WordPress posts and pages.

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