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 are presenting and explaining complex data.
Charts and graphs help to break up long text passages, and make technical or statistical data more easily digestible.
You can present information with tables, but if you want your audience to try and interpret complex information with numbers, percentages and relationships easily, then charts and graphs are perfect for helping them visualize the information.
Charts and graphs help you present complex data so people can more easily understand it!
Need to add charts or graphs to WordPress? This tutorial shows you how to use WordPress Visualizer – an easy-to-use and powerful plugin that lets you create, manage and embed colorful graphs into your WordPress posts and pages that:
- Your site visitors can interact with
- Lets you upload data from your hard drive or a web-based data source
- Is responsive for mobile 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 way to present your information is to create your charts or graphs using an image editing application, convert these into images and then simply add your images to your site content.
Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins
If you want to easily create interactive bar charts and pie charts 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 free plugin for WordPress users that is simple to install, easy-to-use and allows you to not only create colorful and interactive charts and graphs, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with dynamic content.
WP Plugin: Visualizer
Visualizer URL
You can install the plugin from your WP dashboard (see further below), or download WordPress Visualizer the WP plugin repository using the link below:
http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer
Plugin Description
WordPress Visualizer is a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that lets you create, manage and embed colorful graphs into your WordPress posts and pages in 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 extra plugins are needed.
WordPress Visualizer also provides 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 your web design. Various options are available for each chart that allow you to customize their look and feel.
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 device browsers without having to install extra software.
Plugin Installation
From your WordPress dashboard, select Plugins > Add New from the main admin menu …
In the Add Plugins screen type “visualizer” into the search field and hit enter …
Locate the entry in the search results area and click Install Now …
Click OK to proceed …
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 also get to the plugin’s ‘library’ screen by selecting Media > Visualizer Library in the admin menu …
This takes you to the plugin’s Visualizer Library options …
When you first install the plugin, the library contains no charts.
The next step is to add add charts and graphs to the plugin library.
How To Configure Visualizer
To add a chart or graph to the plugin’s library, click on Add New …
You will see all of the built-in kinds of charts available.
Select the graph or chart 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 containing your data …
When creating your CSV data file, ensure that:
- Your first row contains the column headings.
- Your second row contains the series type (e.g. boolean, timeofday, etc.)
The screenshot below shows how to format your data correctly …
If you are unsure about how to format your data CSV, simply download the sample 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 the CSV file and data from your computer select ‘From Computer‘ …
Use the browser to locate and select your data file and then click on ‘Open‘ …
The plugin imports your data from the CSV file and displays it using the graph/chart type you have previously 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 the 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 selected, the plugin will display a range of customization settings …
Visualizer gives you complete control of your chart or graph, and updates your display in real time …
For example, the pie chart offers various 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 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 are satisfied with how your graph or chart appears, click Create Chart …
The graph or chart will now be added to your ‘Visualizer Library’ section …
Note that every element is given a unique ID displayed as a shortcode. As you will see very soon, this allows you to easily embed graphs and charts into your content …
Graphs and charts added to the Visualizer Library can be accessed by type …
After a graph or chart has been added to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit its details, duplicate it, or delete it …
Visualizer Plugin Usage
Once you have created a new graph or chart and added it to Visualizer, it’s simple to insert it into posts and pages.
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 the ‘Add Media‘ button …
Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …
Find the graph or chart to be added to your content and click on the “insert” icon …
This inserts a shortcode for the element into your content …
After you have finished adding the visual element, click on Publish to publish (or update) your post or page …
After your post has been updated, click ‘View post’ to see the end result …
The chart or graph will appear in the location where you placed the shortcode …
As mentioned earlier, the plugin also displays responsive graphs for viewing on mobile devices …
As you can see, the Visualizer plugin lets you add and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can modify 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 really easy.
The plugin developers have created a series of tutorials you can use to learn how to edit, customize and use Visualizer.
For tutorials on editing, cloning, deleting and adding data to your charts, go to the website below:
Congratulations! Now you know how to easily insert dynamic bar charts and graphs into your WordPress pages and posts with WordPress Visualizer.
***
"I was absolutely amazed at the scope and breadth of these tutorials! The most in-depth training I have ever received on any subject!" - Myke O'Neill, DailyGreenPost.com
***