How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

You’re probably familiar with the adage “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This certainly applies when you’re trying to present and explain data.

Using graphs and charts is great for breaking up content containing a disproportionate amount of text, and making statistical 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 figures, trends and relationships quickly, then charts and graphs are perfect for helping them visualize your information.

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

If you need to learn how to display information visually and dynamically on your WordPress site like charts and graphs, this step-by-step tutorial will show you how to create and add appealing and updateable graphs and charts to your WP pages that:

• Your web visitors can engage with
• Lets you add graph or chart data from your hard drive or a web-based data source
• Is responsive for viewing on mobile devices

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 present your information is to create the charts or graphs using a desktop application, convert these into images and then simply insert the image into your pages.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to embed interactive bar charts and pie graphs into your 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 free WordPress plugin 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 updateable content.

WP Plugin: Visualizer

Plugin URL

You can install the plugin from your WP dashboard (explained a little further below), or download Visualizer here:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Visualizer Plugin Description

Visualizer is an easy-to-use and powerful plugin for WordPress that lets you create, manage and embed eye-catching and dynamic graphs 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 or add-ons are needed.

WordPress Visualizer also comes with a variety of charts optimized for all 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 the look and feel of your website. Several options are available for each chart that allow you to 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 site visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile device browsers without requiring the installation of extra software.

Plugin Installation

From your WordPress admin area, select Plugins > Add New from the navigation sidebar menu …

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

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

Click OK to go ahead …

Activate the plugin after installation is successful …

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 the admin menu …

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

After installing the plugin, the library contains no charts.

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

Visualizer Configuration

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

A page will appear on your browser displaying all the different kinds of graphs and charts available.

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

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

The next step is to upload a CSV file that contains your data …

When creating your CSV data file, make sure that:

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

The screenshot below shows how to format your data correctly …

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

Once you have completed this step, 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 hard drive select ‘From Computer‘ …

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

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

Upload CSV File From The Web

For a step-by-step tutorial that explains 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 correct data), and click ‘Next‘ …

Depending on the chart or graph type selected, the plugin will display a number of customization options and settings …

The WordPress Visualizer plugin gives you full control of your chart or graph, and updates your display in real time …

For example, the pie chart offers various 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 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 happy with the look of your graph or chart, click on the ‘Create Chart’ button …

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

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

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

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

Visualizer 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 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 Add Media …

Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …

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

This will add a shortcode into your content …

Once you have finished adding the visual element, click on Publish to publish (or update) your post or page …

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

The visual element will appear in the location where you have inserted the shortcode …

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

As you can see, the Visualizer plugin lets you insert and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can modify your data and your changes will automatically be reflected throughout your website. This makes working with interactive chart data in WordPress very easy.

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

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 pie charts and graphs to your WordPress pages.

***

***