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 is certainly true when you are trying to present or explain complex information.
Using graphs and charts is great for breaking up technical or difficult content, and making technical or statistical data more easily digestible.
You can present information using tables, but if you want your audience to try and interpret complex information with numbers, percentages and comparisons quickly, then graphs and charts let you present your information in an intelligent and meaningful way that can be quickly and easily understood.
Graphs and charts help explain complex information so your audience can more easily interpret it!
Need to add charts and graphs to WordPress? This step-by-step tutorial shows you how to use WordPress Visualizer – an easy-to-use and powerful plugin for WordPress that allows you to create, manage and insert great-looking graphs into your WordPress posts and pages in just a few simple steps that:
- Your site visitors can engage with
- Lets you add graph or chart data from your hard drive or a web-based source of data
- Dynamically resizes for mobile screens
If you plan to display visual data like pie charts, comparison data or trending graphs containing static information (e.g. historical data), a simple method you can use to display your information is to create your charts or graphs using an image editing application, convert these into images and then simply add the files and an image to your site content.
Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins
If you want to 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 plugin for WordPress that is simple to install, easy-to-use and allows you to not only create stunning and mobile-responsive graphs and charts, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with updatable information.
Visualizer – WP Plugin
Plugin URL
You can install the plugin from your WP dashboard (we will show you how to do this further below), or download Visualizer the WordPress plugin repository using the link below:
http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer
Visualizer Description
WordPress Visualizer is an easy-to-use and powerful WP plugin that lets you create, manage and insert stunning and interactive graphs and charts into your WordPress posts and pages in just 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 additional addons are needed.
The plugin also provides a variety of charts that are optimized to address 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 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. Various 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 web visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile browsers without requiring the installation of extra software.
Plugin Installation
From your WordPress administration area, select Plugins > Add New from the main sidebar menu …
In the Add Plugins page type in “visualizer” into the search field and click enter …
Locate Visualizer in the search results area and click Install Now …
Click OK to proceed …
Activate the plugin after installation is successful …
You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins section …
After the plugin has been activated, click on Library …
You can also get to the plugin’s ‘library’ screen by choosing Media > Visualizer Library from your admin menu …
This brings up the plugin’s Visualizer Library settings …
After installing the plugin, the library contains no charts.
Your next step is to add add charts and graphs to your library.
How To Configure The Plugin
To add a chart or graph to the library, click on ‘Add New’ …
A gallery displaying all the different kinds of graphs and charts available will load on your screen.
Select the type of graph or chart you would like to create and click on the ‘Next’ button …
Your selected 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, ensure that:
- The first row includes the column headings.
- The second row contains the series type (e.g. number, date, etc.)
The screenshot below shows how to format your data as required …
If you are unsure about how to format your CSV file, just download the sample supplied with the plugin.
Once you have completed this step, 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 computer select ‘From Computer‘ …
Locate and select your file and click on ‘Open‘ …
The plugin imports your data from the CSV file and displays it using the graph/chart type chosen …
Upload CSV File From The Web
For a tutorial that explains 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 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 will display a range 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 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’re satisfied with the look of your graph or chart, click Create Chart …
Your chart or graph will be added to your ‘Visualizer Library’ section …
Note that new elements are given a unique ID displayed in a shortcode. As you will see in just a moment, this lets you add charts and graphs to your WordPress content easily and quickly …
Graphs and charts added to the Visualizer Library can easily be accessed by their type …
After a new item has been added to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit it, duplicate it, or trash it …
Visualizer Usage
After creating a new chart or graph and adding it to Visualizer, it’s easy to add it to a post or page.
First, create a new post or page (or open an existing one) …
Next, place your mouse cursor where you want to insert your visual element into the content and click on the ‘Add Media‘ button …
Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …
Select the chart or graph to be added to your content and click the “insert” icon …
This will add a shortcode for the element into your content …
After you have finished adding the shortcode, click on Publish to publish (or update) your page or post …
After the page/post has been published, click ‘View post’ to see the end result …
The visual element will show up in the content …
As mentioned earlier, the plugin also displays responsive visual elements for mobile users …
As you can see, Visualizer lets you insert and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can change your data and the changes will automatically be reflected wherever you have inserted your charts, graphs, comparison bars , etc. in your website. This makes working with dynamic graph data in WordPress really efficient.
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 Visualizer.
For additional tutorials on editing, cloning, deleting and adding data to your charts, visit the website below:
Congratulations! Now you know how to create colorful and interactive pie charts and graphs in 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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