How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress
No doubt you’re familiar with the old saying “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This certainly applies when you’re trying to present or explain data.
Using charts and graphs is a great way to break up long and boring text, and make data a lot easier to understand.
You can use tables to present information, but if you want your audience to try and interpret complex data with figures, trends and comparisons more easily, then charts and graphs let you present data in a meaningful and intelligent manner that can be quickly understood.
Charts and graphs help present complex data so people can more easily interpret it!
If you want to present information visually and dynamically on your WordPress site like charts and graphs, this step-by-step tutorial will show you how to create and add eye-catching and updatable charts to your pages that:
- Your site visitors can interact with
- Allows you to add data from your hard drive or a web-based source of data
- Will dynamically resize for mobile browsers
If you are displaying visual data like bar charts, comparison graphs or trending graphs containing information that is not going to change (e.g. historical data), an easier way to display your data is to create your graphs or charts using an image editing application, convert these into jpg and png files and then simply add the images to your posts or pages.
Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins
If you want to easily create dynamic bars and graphs in WordPress posts 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 that is simple to install, easy-to-use and allows you to not only create stunning and dynamic charts and graphs, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with updateable data.
WP Plugin: Visualizer
Plugin URL
You can install the plugin from your WP dashboard (we show you how to do this further down the page), or access and download the Visualizer plugin from the link below:
http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer
Plugin Description
WP Visualizer is a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that allows you to create, manage and insert stunning and dynamic charts and 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.
The plugin also contains a variety of built-in optimized for 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 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 the look and feel of your website. Various options are available for each chart that allow you to further customize their look and feel.
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 browsers without having to install additional software.
Plugin Installation
Inside your WP dashboard, select Plugins > Add New from the main sidebar menu …
In the Add Plugins page type “visualizer” into the search field and hit enter …
Locate the plugin in the search results area and click Install Now …
Click OK to go ahead …
Activate the plugin after installation is successful …
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 from the main menu …
This brings up the plugin’s Visualizer Library options …
After installing the plugin, the library section will be empty.
Your 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 The Plugin
To add a graph or chart to the plugin’s library, click on the Add New button …
A page will load on your browser with all of the built-in types of charts available.
Select the type of chart or graph 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 containing the data you would like your chart or graph to be populated with …
When creating your CSV data file, ensure that:
- The first row contains the column headings.
- The second row includes the series type (e.g. number, datetime, etc.)
The screenshot below shows how to format your data as per the requirements above …
If you are not sure how to format your CSV file, just refer to the sample spreadsheet that comes 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 your CSV file and data from your hard drive 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 selected …
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 your data, check 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‘ …
Depending on the chart or graph type selected, the plugin displays a number of customization settings …
Visualizer gives you complete control over your chart or graph, 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 satisfied with the look of your chart or graph, click Create Chart …
The new chart or graph will now be added to your Visualizer ‘Library’ …
Note that new visual elements are given a unique ID displayed in a shortcode. As you will see in a moment, this lets you add graphs and charts to your WordPress posts and pages easily and quickly …
Graphs and charts added to the Visualizer Library can be accessed by their type …
After a new item has been added to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit its details, duplicate it, or delete it …
Visualizer Plugin Usage
After you have created a chart or graph 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 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 will add a shortcode for the element into your content …
After you have finished adding the visual element, click on Publish to publish (or update) your post or page …
Once the post has been updated, click ‘View post’ to see the end result …
You will see the graph or chart in the location where you have inserted the shortcode …
As mentioned previously, the plugin also displays responsive graphs for viewing on mobile devices …
As you can see, Visualizer lets you insert and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can change your data and your changes will automatically be reflected wherever you have inserted your charts, graphs, comparison bars , etc. in your site. This is very convenient if you’re working with interactive graph information in WordPress.
The plugin developers have created a series of tutorials you can use to learn how to edit, customize and use WordPress Visualizer.
For tutorials on editing, copying, deleting and adding data to your charts, go to the site below:
Congratulations! Now you know how to easily insert beautiful pie charts and graphs into 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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