How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

You’ve no doubt heard the old saying “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This is certainly true when you’re trying to present and explain complex data.

Using graphs and charts is useful for breaking up long and difficult text, and making statistical data and information more easily digestible.

You can present information with tables, but if you want your audience to try and make sense of complex information with figures, percentages and relationships more easily, then charts and graphs let you present the data in an intelligent and meaningful manner that can be quickly understood.

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

Need to add charts and graphs to your WordPress pages and posts? 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 beautiful and mobile-responsive graphs into your WordPress posts and pages in a few mouse clicks that:

• Your web visitors can interact with
• Allows you to add data from your hard drive or a web-based source of data
• Resizes dynamically for mobile device viewing

If you are displaying visual data like pie charts, comparison data or trending graphs containing information that is not going to change (e.g. historical data), an easier way to display this data is to create the graphs or charts using a desktop application, convert these into .jpg or .png files and then simply add your image files to your page or post.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

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

Fortunately, there is a great plugin for WordPress sites that is simple to install, easy-to-use and allows you to not only create great-looking and mobile-responsive charts and graphs, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with updatable information.

WP Plugin: Visualizer

Plugin URL

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

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Visualizer Description

The Visualizer plugin is a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that lets you create, manage and embed colorful and mobile-responsive charts into your WordPress posts and pages with 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 add-ons are needed.

Visualizer 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

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 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 requiring the installation of any extra plugins.

Plugin Installation

Inside your WP admin area, select Plugins > Add New from the navigation sidebar menu …

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

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

Click OK to go ahead …

Activate the plugin …

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 in your admin menu …

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

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

The next step is to add the charts and graphs to your library that you will want to display in your posts or pages.

How To Configure The Visualizer Plugin

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

An image gallery displaying all of the kinds 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 …

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 would like your chart or graph to be populated with …

When creating your CSV data file, make sure that:

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

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

If you are unsure about how to format your data CSV, simply use the sample CSV file 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‘ …

Locate and select your 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, see the article below:

• 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 data file with the right 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 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 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 are satisfied with the look of your chart or graph, click on the ‘Create Chart’ button …

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

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

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

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

Visualizer Usage

Once you’ve created a element and added it to Visualizer, it’s easy to add it to a page or post.

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 your content and click on Add Media …

Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …

Find the chart or graph you want to insert into your content and click the “insert” icon …

This will add a shortcode into your content …

After you have added your element, click on Publish to publish (or update) your content …

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

You will see your item in the content …

As mentioned earlier, Visualizer also displays responsive graphs for viewing on mobile devices …

As you can see, Visualizer 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 wherever you have inserted your charts, graphs, comparison bars , etc. in your website. This is a real time-saving benefit of the plugin if you’re managing dynamic graph data in WordPress.

The developers of this plugin have created a number of tutorials you can refer to for ways to edit, customize and use the 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 add beautiful and dynamic pie charts and graphs to your WordPress posts and pages with WP Visualizer.

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