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 presenting or explaining data.

Using charts and graphs is a great way to make technical or statistical data more easily digestible.

You can use tables to present information, but if you want your audience to try and make sense of complex information with figures, trends or relationships quickly, then charts and graphs let you present your information in an intelligent and meaningful way that can be quickly understood.

Charts and graphs help present complex data so your audience can more easily understand it!

Need to add charts and graphs to your WordPress pages and posts? This step-by-step tutorial shows you how to use WP Visualizer – an easy-to-use and powerful WP plugin that allows you to create, manage and embed eye-catching and dynamic graphs and charts into your WordPress posts and pages in a few simple steps that:

• Your web visitors can engage with
• Allows you to upload graph or chart data from your hard drive or a web-based data source
• Will dynamically resize for mobile devices

If you plan to display visual data like pie charts, comparison data or trending graphs which contain information that is not going to change (e.g. historical data), a simple method you can use to add this data is to create the charts or graphs using an image editing application, convert these into images and then simply add your files and an image to your pages.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to easily add interactive bar charts and pie graphs to WordPress content with no coding skills required, the easiest way to do this is to use a plugin.

Fortunately, there is a WordPress plugin that is simple to install, easy-to-use and allows you to not only create attractive and interactive charts and graphs, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with updateable content.

Visualizer – WordPress Plugin

Plugin URL

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

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Visualizer Plugin Description

WP Visualizer is a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that lets you create, manage and insert stunning graphs into your WordPress posts and pages with just a few mouse clicks.

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 additional plugins or add-ons are required.

Visualizer also comes with a variety of charts that are optimized to address 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. A number of options are available for each chart that let you fully customize their settings.

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 plugins.

Plugin Installation

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

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

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

Click OK to go ahead …

Activate the plugin after successfully installing it …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins section …

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 main menu …

This brings up the plugin’s Visualizer Library screen …

When you first install the plugin, the library contains no charts.

The next step is to add add charts and graphs to your library.

Visualizer Configuration

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

A visual gallery displaying all of the different types of charts and graphs available will come up on your screen.

Select the type of chart or graph 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 your data …

When creating your CSV data file, ensure that:

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

The screenshot below shows how to format your data as required …

If you are not sure how to format your CSV file, simply refer to the sample CSV file supplied with the plugin.

Next, select the 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 computer select ‘From Computer‘ …

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

The plugin imports the data from the CSV file and displays it using the graph/chart type selected …

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, go here:

• 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 new data file containing the right data), and then click ‘Next‘ …

Depending on the chart or graph type you’ve selected, the plugin will display a number of customization settings …

Visualizer gives you complete control of your information, and updates your display in real time …

For example, the pie chart offers various configurable options, including:

• 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’re satisfied with how your graph or chart looks, click on the ‘Create Chart’ button …

Your 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 in just a moment, this allows you to easily insert graphs and charts into your content …

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

After adding an element to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit its details, duplicate it, or trash it …

Visualizer Usage

After creating a graph or chart and adding it to the Library, adding it to pages and posts is very simple.

First, create a new post or page (or open an existing one) …

Next, place your mouse cursor where you would like to insert your visual element into the content and click on the ‘Add Media‘ button …

Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …

Select the element you want to add to your content and click on the “insert” icon …

This will add a shortcode for the element into your content …

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

Once your post has been updated, click ‘View post’ to see the results …

The visual element will display in the content …

As mentioned previously, Visualizer also displays responsive graphs and charts for mobile browsing …

As you can see, WordPress 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 throughout your site. This is very convenient if you’re working with interactive chart information in WordPress.

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

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

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

Congratulations! Now you know how to easily insert colorful charts and graphs into WordPress with WordPress Visualizer plugin.

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