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 or explain data.
Using charts and graphs is useful for breaking up long text passages, and making 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 data with numbers, trends or comparisons easily, then graphs and charts let you present data in a meaningful and intelligent way that can be quickly understood.
Graphs and charts help you present complex information so your audience can more easily interpret it!
If you need to present information visually and dynamically on your WordPress site using graphs and charts, this tutorial will show you exactly how to create and add great-looking and updateable graphs and charts to your pages that:
- Your site visitors can interact with
- Lets you add chart or graph data from your computer or an online data source
- Will dynamically resize for mobile devices
If you plan to display visual data like bar charts, comparison data or trending graphs containing static information (e.g. historical data), an easier option is to create your charts or graphs using a desktop application, convert these into images and then simply add your images to your content.
Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins
If you want to easily create dynamic bar charts and pie charts in WordPress pages and posts 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 appealing and mobile-responsive charts and graphs, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with updateable data.
Visualizer – WP Plugin
Visualizer URL
You can install the plugin from your WP dashboard (see further down the page), or access and download the WordPress Visualizer plugin here:
http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer
Visualizer Plugin Description
WordPress Visualizer is a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that lets you create, manage and insert interactive graphs into your WordPress posts and pages in 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 extra 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
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 site’s design. A number of options are available for each chart that let you 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 blog or site visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile device browsers without having to install additional plugins.
Plugin Installation
From your WP administration area, select Plugins > Add New from the dashboard menu …
In the Add Plugins screen type in “visualizer” into the search field 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 successfully installing it …
You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins area …
Once your plugin has been activated, click on Library …
You can also get to the plugin’s ‘library’ screen by choosing Media > Visualizer Library from your dashboard menu …
This brings up the plugin’s Visualizer Library page …
After installing the plugin, this section will be empty.
Your next step is to add the charts and graphs to your library that you will want to display in your pages or posts.
How To Configure Visualizer
To add a new chart or graph to the Visualizer library, click on the ‘Add New’ button …
An image gallery displaying all of the different kinds of graphs available will come up on your screen.
Select the chart or graph type you would like to create and click on the ‘Next’ button …
Your 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 includes your column headings.
- The second row includes the series type (e.g. boolean, datetime, etc.)
The screenshot below shows how to format your data …
If you are not sure how to format your CSV file, simply study the sample spreadsheet supplied 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 a CSV file from your computer select ‘From Computer‘ …
Use the browser to locate and select your data file and click on ‘Open‘ …
The plugin will import your data and display it using the graph/chart type you have 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, go here:
After importing the data, check that all of your information is correct (if not, click on the ‘Back’ button and reupload a data file containing the correct data), and then click ‘Next‘ …
Depending on the chart or graph type you’ve picked, the plugin will display a range of customization options and settings …
The WordPress Visualizer plugin gives you full control over 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 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 happy with the look of your chart or graph, click on the ‘Create Chart’ button …
Your chart or graph will be added to your ‘Visualizer Library’ section …
Note that every element is given a unique ID displayed in a shortcode. As you will see very soon, this lets you add charts and graphs to your WordPress content very easily …
Charts and graphs added to the Visualizer Library can easily be accessed by type …
After adding a new chart or graph to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit it, clone it, or trash it …
Visualizer Usage
After creating a new element and adding it to the Library, adding it to posts or pages 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 Add Media …
Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …
Select the element you want to insert into your content and click on the “insert” icon …
This inserts a shortcode for the element into your content …
After you have finished adding your visual element, click on Publish to publish (or update) your content …
After updating the post, click ‘View post’ to see it …
Your post or page will display the chart or graph in your content …
As mentioned previously, Visualizer also displays responsive graphs for mobile browsers …
As you can see, the Visualizer plugin allows you to insert and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can change your data and the changes will automatically be reflected wherever you have inserted your charts, graphs, comparison bars , etc. in your site. This makes adding dynamic chart data in WordPress really easy.
The developers of this plugin have created a series of tutorials you can use to learn how to edit, customize and use WordPress Visualizer.
For additional tutorials on editing, copying, deleting and adding data to your charts, visit the site below:
Congratulations! Now you know how to easily add colorful and mobile-responsive charts and graphs to WordPress with WP Visualizer plugin.
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"This is AMAZING! I had learnt about how to use WordPress previously, but this covers absolutely everything and more!! Incredible value! Thank you!" - Monique, Warrior Forum
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