How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

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

Graphs and charts are a great way to make data more easily digestible.

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

Graphs and charts help explain complex data so people can more easily interpret it!

Need to add charts or graphs to WordPress? This tutorial shows you how to use WP Visualizer – a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that allows you to create, manage and insert beautiful and interactive graphs into your WordPress posts and pages that:

• Your visitors can interact with
• Lets you add chart or graph data from your hard drive or an online data source
• Resizes dynamically for mobile screens

If you are displaying visual data like pie charts, comparison charts or trending graphs containing static information (e.g. historical data), a simple method you can use is to create your graphs or charts using a desktop application, convert these into images and then simply add your image files to your pages or posts.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to easily insert interactive bars and pie charts 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 beautiful and mobile-responsive charts and graphs, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with updateable data.

Visualizer

Visualizer Plugin URL

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

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Plugin Description

Visualizer is an easy-to-use and powerful plugin that allows you to create, manage and embed eye-catching and interactive graphs and charts into your WordPress posts and pages in a few mouse clicks.

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 extra plugins are needed.

Visualizer also contains 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 also 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 blog or site visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile devices without requiring the installation of any extra plugins.

How To Install Visualizer

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

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

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

Click OK to continue …

Activate the plugin …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins page …

After your plugin has been activated, click on Library …

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

This brings up the plugin’s Visualizer Library settings …

After installing the plugin, this section will be empty.

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

How To Configure The Visualizer Plugin

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

You will be presented with all of the default kinds of graphs available.

Select the type of chart or graph 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 containing your data …

When creating your CSV data file, ensure that:

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

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

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

Next, select your 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 hard drive select ‘From Computer‘ …

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

The plugin imports your data from the CSV file and displays it using the graph/chart type you have previously 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, check that all of your information is correct (if not, click on the ‘Back’ button and reupload a data file with the correct data), and click ‘Next‘ …

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

Visualizer 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, 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’re satisfied with the look of your chart or graph, click Create Chart …

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

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

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

After a new item has been added to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit it, duplicate it, or delete it …

Plugin Usage

After creating a new graph or chart and adding it to Visualizer, it’s simple to insert it into your pages or posts.

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 Add Media …

Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …

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

This inserts a shortcode for the element into your content …

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

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

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

As mentioned previously, the plugin also displays responsive charts and graphs for viewing on mobile devices …

As you can see, WordPress Visualizer lets you insert and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can edit your data and your changes will automatically be reflected throughout your website. This is great if you’re working with interactive chart data in WordPress.

The developers of this plugin have created a series of tutorials you can refer to for ways to edit, customize and use Visualizer.

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

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

Congratulations! Now you know how to insert beautiful bar charts and graphs into your WordPress pages with WordPress Visualizer plugin.

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