How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress
You’ve no doubt heard the saying “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This certainly applies when you are presenting and explaining data.
Charts and graphs are a great way to break up long text passages, and make technical data more easily digestible.
You can present information with tables, but if you want people to try and make sense of complex data with figures, trends or relationships quickly, then charts and graphs allow you to present your data in an intelligent and meaningful manner that can be easily understood.
Charts and graphs help you present complex data so people can more easily interpret it!
Need to add charts or graphs to WordPress? This tutorial shows you how to use WordPress Visualizer – a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that allows you to create, manage and embed dynamic charts and graphs into your WordPress posts and pages that:
- Your site visitors can engage with
- Allows you to upload data from your hard drive or an online source of data
- Will resize dynamically for mobile screens
If you plan to display visual data like pie charts, comparison graphs or trending graphs containing information that is not going to change (e.g. historical data), an easier option is to create the charts or graphs using a desktop application, convert these into .jpg or .png files and then simply add your images to your posts.
Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins
If you want to insert interactive bar charts and pie graphs into 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 stunning and dynamic graphs and charts, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with updatable information.
Visualizer Plugin For WordPress
Visualizer URL
You can install the plugin from your WordPress dashboard (see further below), or access and download the Visualizer plugin here:
http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer
Visualizer Plugin Description
The Visualizer plugin is a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that allows you to create, manage and embed beautiful charts into your WordPress posts and pages with 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 plugins or add-ons are needed.
The plugin 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
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 site’s 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 visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile device browsers without having to install additional plugins.
How To Install The Plugin
Inside your WP dashboard, select Plugins > Add New from the navigation sidebar menu …
In the Add Plugins screen type in “visualizer” into the search field and hit enter …
Locate the plugin in the search results section and click Install Now …
Click OK to go ahead …
Activate the plugin …
You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins page …
Once the 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 takes you to the plugin’s Visualizer Library section …
When you first install the plugin, the library will contain no charts.
Your next step is to add the charts and graphs to your library that you plan to publish to your content.
Visualizer Configuration
To add a graph or chart to the Visualizer library, click on the Add New button …
A page will load in your screen displaying all the kinds 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 open up in a lightbox.
The next step is to upload a CSV file with your data …
When creating your CSV data file, ensure that:
- The first row includes your column headings.
- Your second row includes the series type (e.g. string, timeofday, etc.)
The screenshot below shows how to format your data …
If you are not sure how to format your data CSV, simply refer to the sample spreadsheet that comes 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 your CSV file and data from your hard drive select ‘From Computer‘ …
Locate and select your file and click on ‘Open‘ …
The plugin will now import the data from the CSV file and display it using the graph/chart type chosen …
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, check that all of your information is correct (if not, click on the ‘Back’ button and reupload a 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 …
The plugin gives you full 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 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 happy with how your chart or graph appears, click on the ‘Create Chart’ button …
Your new chart or graph will be added to your ‘Visualizer Library’ section …
Note that every new element is given a unique ID displayed in a shortcode. As you will see very soon, this lets you add charts and graphs to your WordPress pages and posts very quickly …
Charts and graphs added to the Visualizer Library can be accessed by their type …
After a new graph or chart has been added to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit its details, clone it, or trash it …
Visualizer Usage
Once you have created a new chart or graph and added it to Visualizer, adding it to pages and posts is really very simple.
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‘ …
Find the graph or chart to be inserted into your content and click the “insert” icon …
This will add a shortcode for the element into your content …
Once you have added the item, click on Publish to publish (or update) your page or post …
After updating your page/post, click ‘View post’ to see the result …
Your page or post displays the chart in the location you specified …
As mentioned previously, Visualizer also displays responsive charts for mobile browsers …
As you can see, the Visualizer plugin allows you to insert and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can edit your data and your changes will automatically be reflected throughout your website. This makes working with dynamic chart information in WordPress very easy.
The plugin developers have created a series of 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 site below:
Congratulations! Now you know how to easily insert great-looking and dynamic charts and graphs into WordPress with WP Visualizer plugin.
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