How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

No doubt you’re familiar with the saying “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This is certainly true when you are trying to present and explain data.

Graphs and charts are a great way to break up long text passages, and make statistical data and information more easily digestible.

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

Graphs and charts help you present complex data so your audience can more easily interpret it!

Need to add charts and graphs to WordPress? This step-by-step tutorial shows you how to use WP Visualizer – a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that lets you create, manage and embed colorful and dynamic graphs into your WordPress posts and pages with just a few simple steps that:

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

If you plan to display visual data like bar charts, comparison bars or trending graphs containing information that is not going to change (e.g. historical data), an easier way to add the information is to create the charts or graphs using a desktop application, convert these into images and then simply insert the image into your page or post.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to create interactive bars and pie charts in WordPress posts and pages 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 beautiful and dynamic charts and graphs, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with updateable information.

Visualizer Plugin For WordPress

Plugin URL

You can install the plugin inside your WordPress dashboard (we show you how to do this a little further down the page), or access and download Visualizer from the link below:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Visualizer Description

Visualizer is an easy-to-use and powerful plugin that lets you create, manage and insert eye-catching graphs and charts into your WordPress posts and pages in just 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 additional addons are needed.

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 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 site’s design. Several options are available for each chart that let you 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 blog or site visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile web browsers without having to install any additional plugins.

Plugin Installation

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

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

Locate the plugin in the search results area and click Install Now …

Click OK to continue …

Activate the plugin after installing it …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins page …

Once the plugin has been activated, click on Library …

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

This takes you to the plugin’s Visualizer Library options page …

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

Your next step is to add the charts and graphs to your library that you plan to display in your content.

Visualizer Configuration

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

A visual gallery displaying all of the built-in types of graphs and charts available will come up 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 open up in a lightbox.

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, make sure that:

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

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

If you are not sure how to format your data CSV, just download the sample file that comes with the plugin.

Once you have done this, select your 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‘ …

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

The plugin will import the data from the CSV file and display it using the graph/chart type chosen …

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 the data, check that all of your information is correct (if not, click on the ‘Back’ button and reupload a data file containing the right data), and click ‘Next‘ …

Depending on the chart or graph type selected, the plugin displays various customization options …

The plugin gives you full 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 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 …

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

Note that every element is given a unique ID displayed as a shortcode. As you will see shortly, this lets you insert charts and graphs into your pages and posts very easily …

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

After an item has been added to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit it, duplicate it, or trash it …

Visualizer Usage

Once you’ve created a chart or graph and added it to the Library, adding it to your content is quite simple.

First, create a new post or page (or open an existing one) …

Next, place your mouse cursor where you want to insert your visual element into the content and click on the ‘Add Media‘ button …

Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …

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

This inserts a shortcode for the element into your content …

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

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

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

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

As you can see, WordPress Visualizer lets you insert and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can modify your data and your changes will automatically be reflected wherever you have inserted your charts, graphs, comparison bars , etc. in your site. This makes managing 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 WordPress Visualizer.

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

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

Congratulations! Now you know how to easily add appealing and dynamic charts and graphs to your WordPress content with WordPress Visualizer.

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