How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress
No doubt you’re familiar with the old adage “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This is certainly true when you are presenting or explaining complex information.
Using charts and graphs is great for breaking up content that contains a disproportionate amount of text, and making data a whole lot easier to digest.
You can use tables to present data, but if you want people to try and make sense of complex data with figures, trends or relationships easily, then graphs and charts allow you to present the information in an intelligent and meaningful manner that can be quickly understood.
Charts and graphs help you present complex data so people can more easily interpret it!
Need to add charts and graphs to WordPress? This step-by-step tutorial shows you how to use WP Visualizer – a simple, easy to use and powerful plugin for WordPress that lets you create, manage and embed stunning graphs and charts into your WordPress posts and pages that:
- Your site visitors can engage with
- Lets you add data from your computer or a web-based data source
- Is dynamically responsive for mobile device screens
If you are displaying visual data like bar charts, comparison data or trending graphs that contain static information (e.g. historical data), an easier option is to create the graphs or charts using an image editing application, convert these into images and then simply add the files and an image to your pages or posts.
Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins
If you want to easily add dynamic bar charts and pie charts to WordPress with no coding skills required, the easiest way to do this is to use a plugin.
Fortunately, there is a great plugin for WordPress sites that is simple to install, easy-to-use and allows you to not only create great-looking and interactive charts and graphs, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with updateable information.
Visualizer Plugin For WordPress
Visualizer URL
You can install the plugin inside your WordPress dashboard (we explain how to do this further below), or access and download WordPress Visualizer the WP free plugin repository using the link below:
http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer
Visualizer Plugin Description
WP Visualizer is a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that allows you to create, manage and embed mobile-responsive charts into your WordPress posts and pages in a few simple steps.
WordPress 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.
Visualizer also provides a variety of built-in 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 your web design. Several 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 browsers without having to install additional software.
Plugin Installation
Inside your WordPress dashboard, select Plugins > Add New from the main admin menu …
In the Add Plugins page type “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 …
Once the plugin has been activated, click on Library …
You can also get to the plugin’s ‘library’ screen by selecting Media > Visualizer Library in your admin menu …
This brings up the plugin’s Visualizer Library section …
When you first install the plugin, the library contains no charts.
The next step is to add add charts and graphs to your plugin library.
Visualizer Plugin Configuration
To add a new graph or chart to the Visualizer library, click on the Add New button …
You will see all of the different types of charts available.
Select the chart or graph type you would like to create and click on the ‘Next’ button …
The 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, ensure that:
- The first row contains the column headings.
- The second row contains the series type (e.g. string, timeofday, etc.)
The screenshot below shows how to format your data as per the above requirements …
If you are not sure how to format your CSV file, just download the sample CSV file provided 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 the 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 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, see the article below:
After importing the data, check that all of your information is correct (if not, click on the ‘Back’ button and reupload a data file containing the correct data), and click ‘Next‘ …
Depending on the chart or graph type you’ve chosen, the plugin will display various customization options …
Visualizer gives you complete 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 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 happy with the look of your graph or chart, click Create Chart …
The graph or chart will be added to your ‘Visualizer Library’ section …
Note that every element is given a unique ID displayed as a shortcode. As you will see in just a moment, this allows you to easily embed charts and graphs into your content …
Graphs and charts added to the Visualizer Library can be accessed by type …
After a chart or graph has been added to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit it, duplicate it, or trash it …
Visualizer Usage
After creating a new element and adding it to the Library, it’s very easy to add it to your posts and pages.
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 chart or graph you want to insert into your content and click on the “insert” icon …
This inserts a shortcode into your content …
After you have added the element, click on Publish to publish (or update) your page or post …
Once your page has been published, click ‘View post’ to see the results …
You will see the graph or chart in your content …
As mentioned previously, Visualizer also displays responsive elements for mobile screens …
As you can see, WordPress 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 site. This makes working with dynamic chart data in WordPress very easy.
The developers of this plugin have created a number of tutorials you can refer to to learn how to edit, customize and use the Visualizer plugin for WordPress.
For tutorials on editing, cloning, deleting and adding data to your charts, go to the site below:
Congratulations! Now you know how to add eye-catching and dynamic bar charts and graphs to WordPress.
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