How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress
You’ve heard the adage “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This certainly applies when you are presenting or explaining data.
Using charts and graphs can help to make data more easily digestible.
You can present information using tables, but if you want your audience to try and make sense of complex information with figures, percentages or comparisons more easily, then charts and graphs are perfect for helping them visualize your information.
Charts and graphs help explain complex information so people can more easily understand it!
If you want to present information visually and dynamically on your WordPress site using charts and graphs, this step-by-step tutorial will show you how to create and add great-looking and updateable charts to WordPress that:
- Your visitors can interact with
- Allows you to upload data from your computer or a web-based source of data
- Resizes dynamically for mobile viewing
If you are displaying visual data like bar charts, comparison bars or trending graphs containing static information (e.g. historical data), a simple method you can use to display this data is to create your charts or graphs using an image editing application, convert these into .jpg and .png images and then simply insert your image into your post or page.
Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins
If you want to easily create dynamic bar charts and pie graphs 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 free plugin for WordPress users that is simple to install, easy-to-use and allows you to not only create attractive and dynamic charts and graphs, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with dynamic data.
WP Plugin: Visualizer
Visualizer Plugin URL
You can install the plugin from your WordPress dashboard (explained a little further down the page), or access and download the WP Visualizer plugin here:
http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer
Plugin Description
WP Visualizer is a simple, easy to use and powerful WP plugin that lets you create, manage and insert stunning and dynamic charts and graphs into your WordPress posts and pages with a few simple steps.
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 needed.
The plugin also comes with 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
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 site’s design. A number of options are available for each chart that let you further 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 devices without requiring the installation of any additional software.
Plugin Installation
From your WordPress dashboard, select Plugins > Add New from the main admin menu …
In the Add Plugins page type search for “visualizer” and click enter …
Locate the item in the search results section and click the “Install Now” button …
Click OK to continue …
Activate the plugin …
You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins section …
After the plugin has been activated, click on Library …
You can get to the plugin’s ‘library’ screen by selecting Media > Visualizer Library in the main menu …
This brings up the plugin’s Visualizer Library settings screen …
When you first install the plugin, the library will contain no charts.
Your next step is to add the charts and graphs to your library that you will want to insert into your pages and posts.
Plugin Configuration
To add a new chart or graph to the Visualizer library, click on the Add New button …
A page will load in your browser displaying all of the different kinds of graphs and charts available.
Select the chart or graph type you would like to create and click on the ‘Next’ button …
Your graph/chart type will pop up in a new window.
The next step is to upload a CSV file containing all the data you want to populate your chart or graph with …
When creating your CSV data file, make sure that:
- The first row includes the column headings.
- Your second row contains 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 unsure about how to format your CSV file, simply use the sample 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 a CSV file from your hard drive select ‘From Computer‘ …
Use the browser to locate and select your data file and then click on ‘Open‘ …
The plugin will now 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 the data, check that all of the information is correct (if not, click on the ‘Back’ button and reupload a new data file containing the correct data), and then click ‘Next‘ …
Depending on the chart or graph type you have selected, the plugin displays a range of customization options and settings …
The WordPress Visualizer plugin gives you full control over your information, and updates your display in real time …
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).
Once you’re happy with how your graph or chart is looking, click Create Chart …
Your chart or graph will be added to the ‘Visualizer Library’ section …
Note that each element is given a unique ID displayed as a shortcode. As you will see in just a moment, this allows you to add graphs and charts to your pages easily …
Charts and graphs added to the Visualizer Library can easily be accessed by type …
After an element has been added to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit it, duplicate it, or trash it …
Plugin Usage
After creating a new graph or chart and adding it to Visualizer, adding it to a page 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 your content and click on Add Media …
Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …
Find the graph or chart you want to add to your content and click the “insert” icon …
This inserts a shortcode for the element into your content …
After you have finished adding your element, click on Publish to publish (or update) your post or page …
After publishing the post, click ‘View post’ to see the result …
The item will show up in the location you specified …
As mentioned previously, the plugin also displays responsive visual elements for mobile browsing …
As you can see, Visualizer lets you add 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 adding dynamic chart information in WordPress really efficient.
The developers of this plugin have created a series of tutorials you can use to learn how to edit, customize and use the Visualizer plugin.
For tutorials on editing, cloning, deleting and adding data to your charts, refer to the site below:
Congratulations! Now you know how to insert appealing pie charts and graphs into your WordPress posts with WP Visualizer.
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"Wow! I never knew there's so much to learn about WordPress! I bought one of the WordPress for Dummies three years ago, such authors need to be on this course!" - Rich Law, Create A Blog Now
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