How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress
You’ve no doubt heard the saying “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This is certainly true when you are trying to present and explain complex information.
Using charts and graphs is a great way to break up long text passages, and make statistical data more easily digestible.
You can present data with tables, but if you want your audience to try and interpret complex information with figures, percentages and relationships more easily, then charts and graphs let you present the data in an intelligent and meaningful way that can be easily understood.
Charts and graphs help present complex data so people can more easily understand it!
If you want to learn how to display information visually and dynamically on your WordPress site like charts and graphs, this tutorial will show you how to create appealing and updateable charts to your posts that:
- Your site visitors can engage with
- Allows you to add data from your computer or an online data source
- Dynamically resizes for mobile users
If you are displaying visual data like pie charts, comparison graphs or trending graphs containing static information (e.g. historical data), an easier way to add your information is to create the charts or graphs using a desktop application, convert these into images and then simply insert your image files into your pages or posts.
Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins
If you want to insert interactive bar charts and pie charts into WordPress 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 interactive graphs and charts, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with dynamic data.
Visualizer Plugin For WordPress
Visualizer URL
You can install the plugin in your WordPress dashboard (explained further below), or download the WordPress Visualizer plugin here:
http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer
Visualizer Description
Visualizer is an easy-to-use and powerful plugin for WordPress that lets you create, manage and embed colorful and interactive charts and graphs into your WordPress posts and pages with just a few mouse clicks.
The plugin 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 or add-ons are needed.
Visualizer also comes with a variety of charts 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
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 site’s design. Various options are available for each chart that let you fully 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 web visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile device browsers without having to install extra plugins.
How To Install Visualizer
Inside your WP admin area, select Plugins > Add New from the main admin menu …
In the Add Plugins screen type search for “visualizer” and hit enter …
Locate the item in the search results section and click Install Now …
Click OK to continue …
Activate the plugin after installation is successful …
You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins page …
Once your plugin has been activated, click on Library …
You can get to the plugin’s ‘library’ screen by selecting Media > Visualizer Library in the main menu …
This takes you to the plugin’s Visualizer Library options …
When you first install the plugin, the library section will be empty.
Your next step is to add the charts and graphs to your library that you will want to publish to your posts or pages.
Visualizer Configuration
To add a new chart or graph to the Visualizer library, click on the Add New button …
A page will appear in your browser with all of the built-in kinds of graphs and charts available.
Select the type of graph or chart you would like to create and click on the ‘Next’ button …
The graph/chart type will pop up in a lightbox.
The next step is to upload a CSV file with the data you want your chart or graph to be populated with …
When creating your CSV data file, ensure that:
- Your first row includes the column headings.
- Your second row includes the series type (e.g. boolean, timeofday, etc.)
The screenshot below shows how to format your data as per the above requirements …
If you are unsure about how to format your data CSV, simply study the sample CSV file that comes with the plugin.
Next, 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 from your hard drive select ‘From Computer‘ …
Locate and select your file and click on ‘Open‘ …
The plugin will now import your data from the CSV file and display 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 your information is correct (if not, click on the ‘Back’ button and reupload a new data file containing the right data), and click ‘Next‘ …
Depending on the chart or graph type selected, the plugin will display various customization settings and options …
The plugin gives you full control of 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 are happy with the look of your graph or chart, click Create Chart …
Your new graph or chart will be added to your ‘Visualizer Library’ section …
Note that new visual elements are given a unique ID displayed in a shortcode. As you will see very soon, this allows you to insert graphs and charts into your pages and posts quickly and easily …
Charts and graphs added to the Visualizer Library can be accessed by their type …
After adding a new chart or graph to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit it, clone it, or trash it …
Plugin Usage
Once you’ve created a new element and added it to the Library, adding it to a page or post 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 Add Media …
Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …
Find the graph or chart you want to insert into your content and click the “insert” icon …
This adds a shortcode into your content …
After you have added your element, click on Publish to publish (or update) your content …
After updating your post, click ‘View post’ to see the result …
Your post or page displays your visual element in where you placed the shortcode …
As mentioned earlier, Visualizer also displays responsive charts for mobile browsing …
As you can see, Visualizer allows you to insert and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can modify your data and your changes will automatically be reflected wherever you have inserted your charts, graphs, comparison bars , etc. in your site. This is very convenient if you’re adding dynamic graph data in WordPress.
The developers of this plugin 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, cloning, deleting and adding data to your charts, refer to the site below:
Congratulations! Now you know how to insert beautiful and mobile-responsive charts and graphs into your WordPress pages.
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