How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress
You’ve no doubt heard the old saying “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This certainly applies when you’re presenting and explaining data.
Graphs and charts are a great way to break up technical and boring content, and make data more easily digestible.
You can use tables to present information, but if you want people to try and interpret complex data with figures, percentages and comparisons more easily, then charts and graphs are perfect for helping them interpret the data.
Charts and graphs help you present complex information so people can more easily interpret it!
Need to add charts or graphs to WordPress? This tutorial shows you how to use the WordPress Visualizer plugin – a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that allows you to create, manage and insert stunning and interactive graphs and charts into your WordPress posts and pages in just a few mouse clicks that:
- Your web visitors can interact with
- Allows you to add data from your hard drive or an online source of data
- Is dynamically responsive for viewing on mobile devices
If you plan to display visual data like pie charts, comparison bars or trending graphs containing static information (e.g. historical data), a simple method you can use is to create the graphs or charts using an image editing application, convert these into jpg or png files and then simply add your image files to your site content.
Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins
If you want to easily create interactive bar charts and graphs in 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 great-looking and interactive graphs and charts, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with dynamic information.
Visualizer – WordPress Plugin
Visualizer URL
You can install the plugin in your WordPress dashboard (we will explain how to do this a little further below), or download WordPress Visualizer the WordPress free plugin repository using the link below:
http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer
Plugin Description
Visualizer is a simple, easy to use and powerful plugin that allows you to create, manage and insert colorful and dynamic graphs and charts into your WordPress posts and pages in just a few simple steps.
The plugin 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 are needed.
Visualizer also provides 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 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 web visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile devices without requiring the installation of any extra plugins.
Plugin Installation
Inside your WordPress administration area, select Plugins > Add New from the dashboard menu …
In the Add Plugins page type search for “visualizer” and hit enter …
Locate Visualizer in the search results screen and click Install Now …
Click OK to go ahead …
Activate the plugin after installing it …
You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins section …
Once the plugin has been activated, click on Library …
You can also get to the plugin’s ‘library’ screen by choosing Media > Visualizer Library in your dashboard menu …
This takes you to the plugin’s Visualizer Library settings …
When you first install the plugin, the library section will be empty.
The next step is to add the charts and graphs to your library that you will want to publish to your posts or pages.
How To Configure Visualizer
To add a chart or graph to the Visualizer library, click on ‘Add New’ …
A gallery displaying all of the kinds of graphs and charts available will load on your screen.
Select the type of chart or graph you would like to create and click on the ‘Next’ button …
The 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 your chart or graph to be populated with …
When creating your CSV data file, ensure that:
- Your first row includes the column headings.
- The second row includes the series type (e.g. string, date, etc.)
The screenshot below shows how to format your data as per the requirements above …
If you are not sure how to format your data CSV, simply use the sample spreadsheet supplied with the plugin.
Once you have done this, 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‘ …
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 previously 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, see the article below:
After importing your data, make sure 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 click ‘Next‘ …
Depending on the chart or graph type you’ve chosen, the plugin displays a range of customization settings …
Visualizer gives you full control of your information, and updates your display in real time …
For example, the pie chart offers various configurable options, including:
- 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 happy with the look of your graph or chart, click on the ‘Create Chart’ button …
The new graph or chart will now be added to the Visualizer ‘Library’ …
Note that new visual elements are given a unique ID displayed as a shortcode. As you will see shortly, this allows you to embed charts and graphs into your posts easily …
Charts and graphs added to the Visualizer Library can easily be accessed by type …
After an item has been added to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit its details, duplicate it, or trash it …
Visualizer Usage
Once you have created a graph or chart and added it to Visualizer, adding it to your content is really 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 to be inserted into your content and click on the “insert” icon …
This adds a shortcode for the element into your content …
After you have added your visual element, click on Publish to publish (or update) your page or post …
After updating your page, click ‘View post’ to see the results …
You will see your chart or graph in where you placed the shortcode …
As mentioned earlier, the plugin also displays responsive charts and graphs for viewing on mobile devices …
As you can see, Visualizer allows you to insert and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can edit your data and the changes will automatically be reflected wherever you have inserted your charts, graphs, comparison bars , etc. in your website. This makes working with dynamic chart data in WordPress really efficient.
The plugin developers have created a number of step-by-step tutorials you can refer to for ways to edit, customize and use the Visualizer plugin for WordPress.
For additional tutorials on editing, copying, deleting and adding data to your charts, go to the website below:
Congratulations! Now you know how to easily insert great-looking and mobile-responsive charts and graphs into WordPress with WordPress Visualizer.
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"I have used the tutorials to teach all of my clients and it has probably never been so easy for everyone to learn WordPress ... Now I don't need to buy all these very expensive video courses that often don't deliver what they promise." - Stefan Wendt, Internet Marketing Success Group
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