How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress
You’re probably familiar with the adage “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This certainly applies when you are presenting or explaining data.
Charts and graphs are a great way to break up long or boring information, and make statistical data more easily digestible.
You can use tables to present information, but if you want people to try and make sense of complex information with numbers, trends and relationships quickly, then charts and graphs let you present the data in an intelligent and meaningful manner that can be quickly processed.
Charts and graphs help you present complex information so people can more easily understand it!
Need to add charts and graphs to your WordPress pages? This tutorial shows you how to use WordPress Visualizer – a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that allows you to create, manage and insert colorful and interactive charts into your WordPress posts and pages that:
- Your site visitors can engage with
- Allows you to upload graph or chart data from your computer or a web-based source of data
- Will dynamically resize for mobile device browsers
If you plan to display visual data like pie charts, comparison charts or trending graphs containing static information (e.g. historical data), an easier way to add this data is to create the charts or graphs using a desktop application, convert these into .jpg and .png images and then simply insert the images into your content.
Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins
If you want to easily add interactive bars and pie graphs to WordPress 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 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 updatable information.
WP Plugin: Visualizer
Visualizer URL
You can install the plugin inside your WordPress dashboard (we will explain how to do this a little further down the page), or download the WP Visualizer plugin from the link below:
http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer
Visualizer Description
Visualizer is an easy-to-use and powerful WP plugin that allows you to create, manage and insert appealing and dynamic graphs and charts into your WordPress posts and pages in just 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 additional addons are required.
Visualizer also provides a variety of built-in optimized for all 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 web design. A number of options are available for each chart that allow you to 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 blog or site visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile browsers without requiring the installation of extra software.
How To Install The Plugin
From your WP administration area, select Plugins > Add New from the main sidebar menu …
In the Add Plugins page type in “visualizer” into the search field and hit enter …
Locate Visualizer in the search results area and click Install Now …
Click OK to continue …
Activate the plugin after installing it …
You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins area …
Once your plugin has been activated, click on Library …
You can get to the plugin’s ‘library’ screen by choosing Media > Visualizer Library in your main menu …
This brings up the plugin’s Visualizer Library options …
After installing the plugin, the library contains no charts.
Your next step is to add add charts and graphs to your plugin library.
Visualizer Configuration
To add a new chart or graph to the plugin’s library, click on ‘Add New’ …
You will see all of the types of charts available.
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 lightbox.
The next step is to upload a CSV file that contains 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, datetime, etc.)
The screenshot below shows how to format your data as explained above …
If you are not sure how to format your CSV file, just refer to the sample that comes with the plugin.
Once you have created your CSV file, 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 and data from your computer select ‘From Computer‘ …
Use the browser to locate and select your data file and 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 your data, make sure that all of your information is correct (if not, click on the ‘Back’ button and reupload a data file with the right data), and then click ‘Next‘ …
Depending on the chart or graph type you’ve chosen, the plugin will display various customization settings and options …
Visualizer gives you total control of your chart or graph, and updates your display in real time …
For example, the pie chart offers various 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 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 satisfied with the look of your chart or graph, click Create Chart …
The new graph or chart will be added to the ‘Visualizer Library’ section …
Note that every new element is given a unique ID displayed in a shortcode. As you will see very soon, this allows you to add charts and graphs to your posts quickly and easily …
Graphs and charts added to the Visualizer Library can easily be accessed by their type …
After adding a chart or graph to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit it, duplicate it, or delete it …
Visualizer Usage
After creating a new chart or graph and adding it to the Library, it’s simple to insert it into 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 your content and click on the ‘Add Media‘ button …
Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …
Select the chart or graph you want to insert into your content and click on the “insert” icon …
This will add a shortcode into your content …
Once you have finished adding the visual element, click on Publish to publish (or update) your page or post …
After the post has been updated, click ‘View post’ to see the result …
Your page or post displays your graph in the location you specified …
As mentioned earlier, the plugin also displays responsive charts for mobile browsers …
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 your changes will automatically be reflected throughout your site. This is great if you’re adding dynamic graph data in WordPress.
The developers of this plugin have created a series of step-by-step 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, refer to the site below:
Congratulations! Now you know how to easily add attractive and interactive charts and graphs to your WordPress posts with WP Visualizer plugin.
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