How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

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

Using charts and graphs can help to break up long text passages, and make statistical data more easily digestible.

You can use tables to present information, but if you want people to try and make sense of complex information with numbers, trends or comparisons quickly, then graphs and charts let you present your data in an intelligent and meaningful manner that can be quickly understood.

Charts and graphs help explain complex information so people can more easily interpret it!

If you want to display dynamic visual content on your WordPress site using graphs and charts, this tutorial will show you how to create appealing and updateable graphs and charts to your posts that:

• Your web visitors can interact with
• Allows you to upload chart or graph data from your computer or a web-based data source
• Is fully responsive for mobile users

If you plan to display visual data like bar charts, comparison data or trending graphs that contain static information (e.g. historical data), an easier way to display your information is to create your charts or graphs using a desktop application, convert these into jpg and png images and then simply insert the images into your posts or pages.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to easily create dynamic bars and pie graphs in 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 that is simple to install, easy-to-use and allows you to not only create great-looking and dynamic charts and graphs, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with updateable information.

Visualizer Plugin For WordPress

Visualizer URL

You can install the plugin in your WP dashboard (we will show you how to do this further down the page), or access and download Visualizer the WordPress free plugin directory using the link below:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Visualizer Plugin Description

WordPress Visualizer is a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that allows you to create, manage and embed attractive and interactive graphs and charts into your WordPress posts and pages with 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 extra components are required.

The plugin also comes with a variety of built-in 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. Various options are available for each chart that let you fully 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 visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile browsers without requiring the installation of any additional software.

Plugin Installation

Inside your WP administration area, select Plugins > Add New from the dashboard menu …

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

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

Click OK to continue …

Activate the plugin after successfully installing it …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins area …

After the plugin has been activated, click on Library …

You can also get to the plugin’s ‘library’ screen by choosing Media > Visualizer Library in the admin menu …

This brings up the plugin’s Visualizer Library options …

After installing the plugin, this section will be empty.

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

How To Configure Visualizer

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

A page will appear on your screen with all of the built-in types of charts available.

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

The graph/chart type will open 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:

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

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

If you are unsure about how to format your CSV file, just refer to the sample CSV file that comes with the plugin.

Once you have created your CSV file, 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 hard drive select ‘From Computer‘ …

Use the browser to locate and select your data file and click on ‘Open‘ …

The plugin will import the data from the CSV file and display 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 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 right data), and click ‘Next‘ …

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

Visualizer gives you full control over your information, and updates your display in real time …

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

• General Settings – Configure chart title settings, 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 appears, click Create Chart …

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

Note that every element is given a unique ID displayed in a shortcode. As you will see shortly, this allows you to embed graphs and charts into your WordPress pages very easily …

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

After a new graph or chart has been added to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit its details, duplicate it, or trash it …

Plugin Usage

Once you’ve created a element and added it to Visualizer, adding it to posts and pages is really very 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‘ …

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

This will place a shortcode into your content …

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

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

The chart will show in the content …

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

As you can see, Visualizer allows you to add and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can change your data and your changes will automatically be reflected wherever you have inserted your charts, graphs, comparison bars , etc. in your website. This makes working with interactive chart information in WordPress very easy.

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

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

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

Congratulations! Now you know how to add appealing and dynamic bar charts and graphs to your WordPress pages and posts with WP Visualizer.

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