How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress
You’ve no doubt heard the old saying “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This is certainly true when you are trying to present and explain complex data.
Using charts and graphs is great for making statistical data and information more easily digestible.
You can present information with tables, but if you want your audience to try and make sense of complex information with numbers, percentages and comparisons more easily, then graphs and charts are perfect for helping them visualize the data.
Graphs and charts help explain complex information so people can more easily understand it!
Need to add charts and graphs to WordPress? This step-by-step tutorial shows you how to use WordPress Visualizer – a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that lets you create, manage and embed interactive graphs into your WordPress posts and pages that:
- Your visitors can engage with
- Allows you to add data from your hard drive or an online source of data
- Is fully responsive for mobile viewers
If you are displaying visual data like pie charts, comparison charts or trending graphs containing static information (e.g. historical data), a simple method you can use to display your information is to create the graphs or charts using a desktop application, convert these into .jpg and .png images and then simply insert the image into your posts.
Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins
If you want to easily create dynamic bars and graphs in WordPress content 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 stunning 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 inside your WP dashboard (we explain how to do this a little further down the page), or download Visualizer here:
http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer
Visualizer Description
WP Visualizer is a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that allows you to create, manage and insert beautiful graphs and charts into your WordPress posts and pages in 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.
WordPress Visualizer also comes with a variety of charts 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. Several 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 visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile web browsers without requiring the installation of any additional software.
How To Install Visualizer
From your WP dashboard, select Plugins > Add New from the dashboard menu …
In the Add Plugins page type in “visualizer” into the search field and hit enter …
Locate the entry in the search results section and click the “Install Now” button …
Click OK to continue …
Activate the plugin after successfully installing it …
You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins area …
Once the plugin has been activated, click on Library …
You can get to the plugin’s ‘library’ screen by choosing Media > Visualizer Library in the dashboard menu …
This takes you to the plugin’s Visualizer Library section …
When you first install the plugin, the library section will be empty.
Your next step is to add add charts and graphs to your plugin library.
Visualizer Configuration
To add a chart or graph to the Visualizer library, click on ‘Add New’ …
A visual gallery displaying all of the built-in kinds of graphs and charts available will come up on your screen.
Select the chart or graph type 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 with the data you would like to populate your chart or graph with …
When creating your CSV data file, ensure that:
- The first row contains your column headings.
- The second row includes the series type (e.g. number, datetime, etc.)
The screenshot below shows how to format your data as explained above …
If you are unsure about how to format your CSV file, simply use the sample spreadsheet provided 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‘ …
Use the browser to locate and select your data 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
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 the data, check that all of the information is correct (if not, click on the ‘Back’ button and reupload a new data file with the correct data), and then click ‘Next‘ …
Depending on the chart or graph type you have selected, the plugin displays a number of customization settings and options …
The WordPress Visualizer 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 happy with the way your chart or graph looks, click Create Chart …
The new graph or chart will be added to your Visualizer ‘Library’ …
Note that every new element is 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 posts and pages easily …
Charts and graphs added to the Visualizer Library can be accessed by their type …
After a new chart or graph has been added to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit its details, clone it, or delete it …
Visualizer Usage
After you’ve created a new graph or chart and added it to Visualizer, it’s quite simple to insert it into your content.
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 Add Media …
Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …
Select the element you want to insert into your content and click on the “insert” icon …
This will add a shortcode for the element into your content …
Once you have added your visual element, click on Publish to publish (or update) your page or post …
Once your post/page has been updated, click ‘View post’ to see it …
You will see the chart in the content …
As mentioned previously, the plugin also displays responsive charts for mobile device users …
As you can see, Visualizer lets you add 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 chart data in WordPress very efficient.
The developers of this plugin have created a series of step-by-step tutorials you can use to learn how to edit, customize and use the Visualizer plugin for WordPress.
For tutorials on editing, copying, deleting and adding data to your charts, visit the website below:
Congratulations! Now you know how to create great-looking and interactive charts and graphs in WordPress with WordPress Visualizer.
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