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 and explaining complex data.

Charts and graphs can help to break up long text passages, and make technical data more easily digestible.

You can present information with tables, but if you want people to try and interpret complex information with figures, percentages or relationships more easily, then graphs and charts allow you to present the data in a meaningful and intelligent manner that can be quickly processed.

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

If you want to learn how to display information visually and dynamically on your WordPress site using graphs and charts, this tutorial will show you exactly how to create and add beautiful and updateable charts to your posts and pages that:

• Your visitors can interact with
• Allows you to add chart or graph data from your hard drive or an online data source
• Will dynamically resize for mobile viewers

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

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

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

Fortunately, there is a plugin for WordPress users that is simple to install, easy-to-use and allows you to not only create appealing and dynamic graphs and charts, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with updatable data.

WordPress Plugin: Visualizer

Visualizer URL

You can install the plugin from your WordPress dashboard (see further down the page), or download the Visualizer plugin here:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Visualizer Description

WP Visualizer is an easy-to-use and powerful tool that lets you create, manage and insert colorful and interactive charts and graphs into your WordPress posts and pages with just 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 extra addons are needed.

Visualizer also contains 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 flexible and customizable, allowing you to use Google Chart Tools with their default setting, or configure an extensive set of options to match your web design. Various options are available for each chart that allow you to customize their look.

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 site visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile devices without requiring the installation of any extra software.

How To Install The Visualizer Plugin

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

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

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

Click OK to continue …

Activate the plugin after installing it …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins area …

Once the plugin has been activated, click on Library …

You can 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 options …

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

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

Visualizer Plugin Configuration

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

A page will appear on your screen with all of the kinds of charts available.

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

The selected graph/chart type will pop up in a new window.

The next step is to upload a CSV file that contains the data you want to populate your chart or graph with …

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, date, etc.)

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

If you are unsure about how to format your data CSV, simply download the sample provided 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 and data from your computer select ‘From Computer‘ …

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

The plugin imports the data from the CSV file and displays 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, see the article below:

• How To Populate Data Using Google Spreadsheet

After importing your data, make sure that all of the 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 you’ve selected, the plugin displays a number of customization options …

The plugin gives you complete 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 are satisfied with how your graph or chart appears, click Create Chart …

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

Note that new visual elements are given a unique ID displayed as a shortcode. As you will see shortly, this allows you to add graphs and charts to your WordPress pages very quickly …

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

After adding a new item to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit it, clone it, or delete it …

Plugin Usage

After you have created a new chart or graph and added it to the Visualizer Library, adding it to a post or page is really 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 Add Media …

Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …

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

This adds a shortcode into your content …

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

After publishing your page/post, click ‘View post’ to see it …

You will see the chart or graph in where you’ve added the shortcode …

As mentioned earlier, the plugin also displays responsive charts and graphs for mobile device browsers …

As you can see, Visualizer allows you to insert and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can update your data and your changes will automatically be reflected throughout your site. This is one of the great benefits of using the Visualizer plugin if you’re adding dynamic chart information in WordPress.

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

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

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

Congratulations! Now you know how to easily create beautiful and dynamic pie charts and graphs in WordPress.

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