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 trying to present and explain data.
Using charts and graphs is great for breaking up content that contains lots of text, and making data simpler to digest.
You can use tables to present data, but if you want your audience to try and interpret complex information with numbers, trends and comparisons more easily, then charts and graphs let you present information in a meaningful and intelligent manner that can be quickly and easily processed.
Graphs and charts help you explain complex information so people can more easily interpret it!
Need to add charts and graphs to your WordPress pages? This step-by-step tutorial shows you how to use WordPress Visualizer – an easy-to-use and powerful tool that allows you to create, manage and embed appealing and mobile-responsive charts and graphs into your WordPress posts and pages with a few mouse clicks that:
- Your web visitors can interact with
- Lets you upload data from your hard drive or an online source of data
- Will dynamically resize 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 is to create the charts or graphs using a desktop application, convert these into .jpg or .png images and then simply insert your images into your site content.
Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins
If you want to easily add dynamic bars and pie charts to WordPress with no coding skills required, the easiest way to do this is to use a plugin.
Fortunately, there is a great free plugin for WordPress sites 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 updatable information.
Visualizer – WordPress Plugin
Visualizer URL
You can install the plugin from your WP dashboard (we will explain how to do this a little further below), or download Visualizer the WordPress free plugin repository using the link below:
http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer
Plugin Description
WP Visualizer is a simple, easy to use and powerful plugin that lets you create, manage and insert attractive and mobile-responsive graphs 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 extra components are required.
The plugin also provides a variety of built-in optimized for 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 a flexible and customizable plugin, allowing you to use Google Chart Tools with their default setting, or configure an extensive set of options to match your web design. A number of options are available for each chart that let you fully 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 visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile web browsers without having to install any additional software.
How To Install The Plugin
From your WP dashboard, select Plugins > Add New from the main admin menu …
In the Add Plugins page type search for “visualizer” and hit enter …
Locate the entry in the search results screen and click the “Install Now” button …
Click OK to continue …
Activate the plugin …
You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins page …
After your plugin has been activated, click on Library …
You can also get to the plugin’s ‘library’ screen by selecting Media > Visualizer Library in your dashboard menu …
This brings up the plugin’s Visualizer Library settings …
After installing the plugin, this 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 and pages.
How To Configure Visualizer
To add a graph or chart to the Visualizer library, click on ‘Add New’ …
A page will appear on your screen displaying all of the 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 open 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:
- 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 data CSV, just study the sample supplied 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 computer select ‘From Computer‘ …
Locate and select your file and then click on ‘Open‘ …
The plugin will import the data and display it using the graph/chart type 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 the data, check 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 will display a number of customization settings and options …
The WordPress Visualizer plugin gives you total control of your information, and updates your display in real time …
For example, the pie chart offers many 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 happy with the way your graph or chart appears, click Create Chart …
The new chart or graph will be added to your ‘Visualizer Library’ section …
Note that new elements are given a unique ID displayed as a shortcode. As you will see shortly, this allows you to embed graphs and charts into your pages quickly …
Graphs and charts added to the Visualizer Library can be accessed by type …
After an item has been added to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit its details, clone it, or trash it …
Visualizer Usage
Once you have created a element and added it to Visualizer, adding it to a post or page 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 the content and click on the ‘Add Media‘ button …
Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …
Find the element you want to add to your content and click on the “insert” icon …
This adds a shortcode for the element into your content …
After you have finished adding the shortcode, click on Publish to publish (or update) your content …
After updating the page/post, click ‘View post’ to see the results …
You will see your chart or graph in the location you specified …
As mentioned earlier, Visualizer also displays responsive graphs and charts for mobile devices …
As you can see, WordPress Visualizer allows you to insert and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can edit your data and your changes will automatically be reflected wherever you have inserted your charts, graphs, comparison bars , etc. in your website. This makes managing dynamic graph information in WordPress really efficient.
The developers of this plugin have created a number of 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, refer to the website below:
Congratulations! Now you know how to easily insert eye-catching and interactive bar charts and graphs into your WordPress posts and pages.
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