How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

Learn how to create, manage and embed stunning dynamic and interactive charts and graphs into your WordPress posts and pages with a few simple steps …

How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

How To Create Beautiful Charts And Graphs In Posts In WordPress

You’ve heard the saying “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This certainly applies when you’re trying to present and explain complex information.

Using charts and graphs is useful for making statistical data more easily digestible.

You can present data with tables, but if you want your audience to try and interpret complex information with numbers, percentages and relationships easily, then charts and graphs allow you to present data in an intelligent and meaningful way that can be quickly and easily processed.

Creating Dynamic Charts In Posts In WordPress

Charts and graphs help you present complex data so people can more easily interpret it!

If you need to learn how to present dynamic visual content on your WordPress site using charts and graphs, this tutorial will show you how to create great-looking and updatable charts and graphs to WordPress that:

  • Your visitors can engage with
  • Allows you to upload chart or graph data from your hard drive or an online data source
  • Is responsive for viewing on mobile devices

Visualizer Plugin For WordPress

Tip

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 the charts or graphs using a desktop application, convert these into .jpg or .png images and then simply add your image to your web content.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

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

Fortunately, there is a free plugin for WordPress users that is simple to install, easy-to-use and allows you to not only create beautiful and interactive charts and graphs, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with dynamic data.

Visualizer – WordPress Plugin

WordPress Plugin: Visualizer

Visualizer Plugin URL

You can install the plugin in your WordPress dashboard (see a little further below), or download WP Visualizer the WordPress plugin repository using the link below:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Plugin Description

WordPress Visualizer is an easy-to-use and powerful plugin for WordPress that lets you create, manage and embed dynamic charts 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 add-ons are required.

Visualizer also provides a variety of built-in that are optimized to address 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 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 site visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile device browsers without requiring the installation of extra software.

How To Install The Plugin

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

WP Step-By-Step Tutorial

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

Install Visualizer - WordPress Plugin

Locate the item in the search results section and click the “Install Now” button …

Install WordPress Plugin: Visualizer

Click OK to proceed …

Install Visualizer - WordPress Plugin

Activate the plugin after installation is successful …

Install Visualizer

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins area …

Install Visualizer - WordPress Plugin

Once your plugin has been activated, click on Library

Install Visualizer

You can get to the plugin’s ‘library’ screen by choosing Media > Visualizer Library in your dashboard menu …

WordPress Step-By-Step

This brings up the plugin’s Visualizer Library settings …

WP Plugin: Visualizer

After installing the plugin, the library contains no charts.

Your next step is to add add charts and graphs to your plugin library.

How To Configure The Visualizer Plugin

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

WordPress Plugin: Visualizer

A visual gallery displaying all the kinds of graphs available will load on your screen.

Select the chart or graph type you would like to create and click on the ‘Next’ button …

Visualizer Plugin For WordPress

The selected graph/chart type will open up in a lightbox.

The next step is to upload a CSV file containing the data you want your chart or graph to be populated with …

Visualizer

Info

When creating your CSV data file, make sure that:

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

The screenshot below shows how to format your data …

Visualizer Plugin For WordPress

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‘ …

Visualizer

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

Visualizer Plugin For WordPress

The plugin will import your data and display it using the graph/chart type you have selected …

Visualizer

Upload CSV File From The Web

Visualizer - WP Plugin

Important

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 the information is correct (if not, click on the ‘Back’ button and reupload a new data file with the right data), and then click ‘Next‘ …

Visualizer Plugin For WordPress

Depending on the chart or graph type you’ve chosen, the plugin displays a number of customization options and settings …

Visualizer Plugin For WordPress

Visualizer gives you full control over your information, and updates your display in real time …

Visualizer - WP Plugin

For example, the pie chart offers many 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).

Visualizer Plugin For WordPress

Once you’re satisfied with the way your graph or chart looks, click Create Chart

Visualizer Plugin For WordPress

Your new chart or graph will be added to the ‘Visualizer Library’ section …

Visualizer Plugin For WordPress

Note that new elements are given a unique ID displayed in a shortcode. As you will see in a moment, this lets you insert graphs and charts into your WordPress pages very easily …

WP Plugin: Visualizer

Graphs and charts added to the Visualizer Library can be accessed by type …

WP Plugin: Visualizer

After adding a chart or graph to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit it, duplicate it, or trash it …

Visualizer

Visualizer Usage

After creating a new graph or chart and adding it to the Library, adding it to a post or page is quite simple.

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

Visualizer Plugin For WordPress

Next, place your mouse cursor where you want to insert your visual element into the content and click on Add Media

@@@

Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …

WP Plugin: Visualizer

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

WordPress Plugin: Visualizer

This will place a shortcode into your content …

Visualizer Plugin For WordPress

After you have finished adding your item, click on Publish to publish (or update) your post or page …

Publishing A WordPress Post

After your post/page has been published, click ‘View post’ to see the results …

Visualizer Plugin For WordPress

Your chart or graph will show up in your content …

Visualizer

As mentioned previously, Visualizer also displays responsive visual elements for mobile browsing …

Visualizer - WP Plugin

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 throughout your website. This makes adding interactive chart information in WordPress very efficient.

Tutorial

The developers of this plugin have created a series of step-by-step tutorials you can refer to 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 create great-looking and mobile-responsive bar charts and graphs in WordPress.

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Originally published as How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress.