How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress
You’ve no doubt heard the adage “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This certainly applies when you are presenting or explaining complex data.
Charts and graphs help to break up long passage of technical information, and make statistical data and information much simpler to understand.
You can present data with tables, but if you want your audience to try and interpret complex data with numbers, trends and comparisons quickly, then graphs and charts allow you to present information in an intelligent and meaningful way that can be quickly and easily processed.
Charts and graphs help explain complex data so your audience 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 embed mobile-responsive charts into your WordPress posts and pages with just a few simple steps that:
- Your visitors can interact with
- Allows you to add chart or graph data from your computer or an online source of data
- Resizes dynamically for mobile devices
If you are displaying visual data like bar charts, comparison charts or trending graphs containing static information (e.g. historical data), a simple method you can use to present your information is to create the charts or graphs using a desktop application, convert these into images and then simply insert the files and an image into your content.
Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins
If you want to easily embed dynamic bar charts and pie charts 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 free plugin for WordPress that is simple to install, easy-to-use and allows you to not only create eye-catching and interactive graphs and charts, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with updatable data.
Visualizer – WP Plugin
Visualizer Plugin URL
You can install the plugin in your WordPress dashboard (we explain how to do this a little further down the page), or download the Visualizer plugin from the link below:
http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer
Visualizer Description
The Visualizer plugin is a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that lets you create, manage and insert mobile-responsive charts into your WordPress posts and pages with 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 plugins or add-ons are needed.
Visualizer also contains 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
WordPress 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 web design. Several 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 web browsers without requiring the installation of additional plugins.
How To Install WordPress Visualizer
Inside your WordPress administration area, select Plugins > Add New from the navigation sidebar menu …
In the Add Plugins screen type search for “visualizer” and click enter …
Locate the entry in the search results area and click the “Install Now” button …
Click OK to continue …
Activate the plugin …
You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins area …
After the plugin has been activated, click on Library …
You can get to the plugin’s ‘library’ screen by selecting Media > Visualizer Library from your admin menu …
This brings up the plugin’s Visualizer Library section …
When you first install the plugin, the library will contain no charts.
Your next step is to add the charts and graphs to your library that you plan to publish to your posts or pages.
Visualizer Plugin Configuration
To add a chart or graph to the library, click on Add New …
You will be presented with all of the different types of graphs and charts available.
Select the graph or chart type you would like to create and click on the ‘Next’ button …
Your selected graph/chart type will pop up in a lightbox.
The next step is to upload a CSV file with the data you would like 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 contains the series type (e.g. boolean, date, etc.)
The screenshot below shows how to format your data as per the above requirements …
If you are unsure about how to format your CSV file, just refer to the sample spreadsheet provided with the plugin.
Once you have created your CSV file, 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 hard drive select ‘From Computer‘ …
Locate and select your file and then click on ‘Open‘ …
The plugin imports your data and displays it using the graph/chart type selected …
Upload CSV File From The Web
For a tutorial that explains how to create, save and publish data to a Visualizer chart or graph using Google Spreadsheet, see the article below:
After importing the data, make sure 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 have selected, the plugin displays a number of customization options and settings …
The plugin gives you complete 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 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 happy with the look of your graph or chart, click on the ‘Create Chart’ button …
The new graph or chart will be added to your Visualizer ‘Library’ …
Note that every new element is given a unique ID displayed as a shortcode. As you will see in just a moment, this allows you to easily insert charts and graphs into your content …
Charts and graphs added to the Visualizer Library can be accessed by type …
After a new chart or graph has been added to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit it, duplicate it, or trash it …
Visualizer Usage
Once you have created a new element and added it to the Visualizer Library, adding it to a page or post is really 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 your content and click on Add Media …
Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …
Find the chart or graph to be inserted into your content and click the “insert” icon …
This adds a shortcode for the element into your content …
After you have finished adding your item, click on Publish to publish (or update) your post or page …
After updating your post/page, click ‘View post’ to see the result …
You will see the visual element in your content …
As mentioned earlier, Visualizer also displays responsive charts and graphs for mobile devices …
As you can see, WordPress Visualizer lets you insert and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can update your data and your changes will automatically be reflected throughout your website. This is great if you’re managing interactive graph information in WordPress.
The plugin developers have created a number of step-by-step tutorials you can use to learn how to edit, customize and use the plugin.
For additional tutorials on editing, cloning, deleting and adding data to your charts, visit the website below:
Congratulations! Now you know how to easily add appealing and mobile-responsive pie charts and graphs to WordPress with WP Visualizer plugin.
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