How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress
You’ve heard the old saying “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This certainly applies when you’re presenting or explaining complex information.
Using charts and graphs is useful for making technical or statistical data a whole lot simpler to understand.
You can use tables to present information, but if you want your audience to try and interpret complex data with numbers, percentages or relationships easily, then charts and graphs allow you to present the data in an intelligent and meaningful way that can be quickly and easily understood.
Graphs and charts help you explain complex data so people can more easily understand it!
If you want to present information visually and dynamically on your WordPress site like graphs and charts, this step-by-step tutorial will show you how to create and add appealing and updatable graphs and charts to your WordPress pages that:
- Your web visitors can interact with
- Lets you upload data from your computer or an online source of data
- Is fully responsive for mobile viewing
If you are displaying visual data like bar charts, comparison charts or trending graphs containing information that is not going to change (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 and .png images and then simply add your image to your pages or posts.
Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins
If you want to easily embed dynamic bar charts and graphs into WordPress with no coding skills required, the easiest way to do this is to use a plugin.
Fortunately, there is a WordPress plugin that is simple to install, easy-to-use and allows you to not only create eye-catching and interactive graphs and charts, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with updatable information.
Visualizer
Plugin URL
You can install the plugin inside your WordPress dashboard (explained a little further down the page), or access and download WP Visualizer the WP plugin repository using the link below:
http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer
Plugin Description
The WordPress Visualizer plugin is a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that lets you create, manage and insert beautiful charts 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 components are required.
Visualizer also comes with 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
The plugin 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 the look and feel of your website. A number of options are available for each chart that let you further 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 site visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile device browsers without having to install any extra plugins.
How To Install WordPress Visualizer
From your WordPress administration area, select Plugins > Add New from the main menu …
In the Add Plugins screen type “visualizer” into the search field and hit enter …
Locate the entry in the search results section and click Install Now …
Click OK to continue …
Activate the plugin after successfully installing it …
You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins section …
Once your plugin has been activated, click on Library …
You can get to the plugin’s ‘library’ screen by selecting Media > Visualizer Library from the admin menu …
This brings up the plugin’s Visualizer Library settings page …
After installing the plugin, this section will be empty.
The next step is to add the charts and graphs to your library that you plan to insert into your pages and posts.
How To Configure The Visualizer Plugin
To add a new graph or chart to the Visualizer library, click on the Add New button …
An image gallery displaying all of the different types of charts and graphs 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 new window.
The next step is to upload a CSV file with your data …
When creating your CSV data file, make sure that:
- The first row contains the column headings.
- The second row includes the series type (e.g. number, timeofday, etc.)
The screenshot below shows how to format your data as explained above …
If you are not sure how to format your data CSV, just refer to the sample that comes with the plugin.
Once you have done this, select your data source (‘From Computer’ or ‘From Web’) in the ‘Upload CSV File’ section.
Upload CSV File From Computer
To upload your CSV file from your computer select ‘From Computer‘ …
Locate and select your file and then click on ‘Open‘ …
The plugin imports the data and displays it using the graph/chart type you have previously chosen …
Upload CSV File From The Web
For a step-by-step tutorial that explains how to create, save and publish data to a Visualizer chart or graph using Google Spreadsheet, see the article below:
After importing your data, check that all of your information is correct (if not, click on the ‘Back’ button and reupload a new data file with the correct data), and click ‘Next‘ …
Depending on the chart or graph type you have selected, the plugin displays a range of customization settings …
The plugin gives you complete control over your information, and updates your display in real time …
For example, the pie chart offers many 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 way your chart or graph looks, click Create Chart …
The graph or chart will now be added to the ‘Visualizer Library’ section …
Note that new visual elements are given a unique ID displayed in a shortcode. As you will see shortly, this lets you easily embed charts and graphs into your content …
Charts and graphs added to the Visualizer Library can be accessed by their type …
After adding a graph or chart 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 the Visualizer Library, it’s simple to insert it into a page.
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 to be added to your content and click on the “insert” icon …
This will add a shortcode into your content …
After you have finished adding the element, click on Publish to publish (or update) your post or page …
After the post/page has been updated, click ‘View post’ to see the results …
Your post or page displays your graph in where you placed the shortcode …
As mentioned previously, Visualizer also displays responsive charts for mobile viewing …
As you can see, WordPress Visualizer allows you to insert and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can change your data and the changes will automatically be reflected throughout your site. This makes adding interactive graph data in WordPress very efficient.
The plugin developers have created a number of tutorials you can refer to for ways to edit, customize and use WordPress Visualizer.
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 add great-looking and interactive pie charts and graphs to WordPress with WordPress Visualizer plugin.
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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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