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’re presenting and explaining data.
Using charts and graphs is a great way to break up technical and boring information, and make technical or statistical data more easily digestible.
You can use tables to present information, but if you want people to try and interpret complex information with figures, percentages or relationships quickly, then charts and graphs are perfect for helping them visualize your data.
Charts and graphs help you explain complex data so people can more easily understand it!
Need to add charts or graphs to your WordPress pages? This tutorial shows you how to use the WordPress Visualizer plugin – a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that lets you create, manage and insert stunning and dynamic charts into your WordPress posts and pages with a few simple steps that:
- Your web visitors can engage with
- Lets you add data from your computer or a web-based source of data
- Is responsive for mobile browsers
If you are displaying visual data like pie charts, comparison graphs or trending graphs which contain information that is not going to change (e.g. historical data), a simple method you can use to display your data is to create your charts or graphs using a desktop application, convert these into .jpg and .png files and then simply add the files and an image to your pages.
Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins
If you want to add dynamic bar charts and graphs to 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 that is simple to install, easy-to-use and allows you to not only create eye-catching and interactive charts and graphs, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with updatable information.
Visualizer – WordPress Plugin
Visualizer Plugin URL
You can install the plugin in your WordPress dashboard (we explain how to do this further down the page), or access and download the WordPress Visualizer plugin here:
http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer
Visualizer Description
Visualizer is a simple, easy to use and powerful plugin that lets you create, manage and embed colorful and mobile-responsive charts into your WordPress posts and pages with 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 addons are needed.
WordPress Visualizer also provides 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
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 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 blog or site visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile device browsers without having to install any additional software.
How To Install Visualizer
Inside your WordPress dashboard, select Plugins > Add New from the main sidebar menu …
In the Add Plugins screen type search for “visualizer” and hit enter …
Locate Visualizer in the search results screen and click the “Install Now” button …
Click OK to go ahead …
Activate the plugin after installation is successful …
You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins section …
After your plugin has been activated, click on Library …
You can get to the plugin’s ‘library’ screen by choosing Media > Visualizer Library in your admin menu …
This brings up the plugin’s Visualizer Library settings …
When you first install the plugin, the library contains no charts.
Your next step is to add the charts and graphs to your library that you plan to insert into your posts or pages.
Visualizer Configuration
To add a new graph or chart to the library, click on ‘Add New’ …
A gallery displaying all the different kinds of graphs and charts available will come up on your screen.
Select the graph or chart type you would like to create and click on the ‘Next’ button …
The graph/chart type will open up in a lightbox.
The next step is to upload a CSV file containing the data you want your chart or graph to be populated with …
When creating your CSV data file, ensure that:
- The first row includes the column headings.
- The second row contains the series type (e.g. number, date, etc.)
The screenshot below shows how to format your data …
If you are unsure about how to format your CSV file, just study the sample spreadsheet 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 your CSV file and data from your computer 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 selected …
Upload CSV File From The Web
For a tutorial that shows you how to create, save and publish data to a Visualizer chart or graph using Google Spreadsheet, go here:
After importing the 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 correct data), and click ‘Next‘ …
Depending on the chart or graph type selected, the plugin displays a number of customization options and settings …
Visualizer gives you complete control over your information, and updates your display in real time …
For example, the pie chart offers many 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 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 how your chart or graph appears, click Create Chart …
Your graph or chart will be added to the ‘Visualizer Library’ section …
Note that new elements are given a unique ID displayed in a shortcode. As you will see shortly, this lets you easily embed graphs and charts into your content …
Charts and graphs added to the Visualizer Library can be accessed by their type …
After adding an item to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit it, duplicate it, or delete it …
Visualizer Plugin Usage
After creating a new element and adding it to Visualizer, it’s really very simple to insert it into pages and posts.
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 the content and click on Add Media …
Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …
Find the chart or graph to be inserted into your content and click the “insert” icon …
This adds a shortcode into your content …
Once you have added your item, click on Publish to publish (or update) your post or page …
After the page has been published, click ‘View post’ to see it …
Your post or page displays the visual element in your content …
As mentioned previously, Visualizer also displays responsive charts and graphs for mobile users …
As you can see, WordPress Visualizer 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 site. This makes adding interactive graph information in WordPress very easy.
The plugin developers have created a series of tutorials you can refer to to learn how to edit, customize and use WordPress Visualizer.
For tutorials on editing, cloning, deleting and adding data to your charts, refer to the website below:
Congratulations! Now you know how to easily insert mobile-responsive pie charts and graphs into your WordPress content.
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