How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress
No doubt you’re familiar with the old adage “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This is certainly true when you are presenting or explaining complex information.
Charts and graphs help to break up technical and difficult information, and make statistical data easier to digest.
You can use tables to present data, but if you want your audience to try and interpret complex information with numbers, percentages or relationships more easily, then graphs and charts are perfect for helping them interpret the data.
Charts and graphs help explain complex data so people can more easily interpret it!
Need to add charts or graphs to WordPress? This step-by-step tutorial shows you how to use WP Visualizer – a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that allows you to create, manage and embed colorful graphs and charts into your WordPress posts and pages that:
- Your site visitors can interact with
- Allows you to add graph or chart data from your hard drive or a web-based source of data
- Dynamically resizes for mobile viewers
If you plan to display visual data like bar charts, comparison data or trending graphs which contain information that is not going to change (e.g. historical data), an easier option is to create the graphs or charts using an image editing application, convert these into images and then simply add your images to your pages or posts.
Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins
If you want to add interactive bars 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 great-looking and dynamic graphs and charts, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with updatable information.
Visualizer
Visualizer URL
You can install the plugin from your WP dashboard (explained a little further below), or download Visualizer the WP free plugin directory using the link below:
http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer
Visualizer Description
WP Visualizer is a simple, easy to use and powerful WP plugin that lets you create, manage and embed interactive graphs 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 extra components are needed.
WordPress Visualizer also contains a variety of charts 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
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 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 extra plugins.
How To Install Visualizer
Inside your WordPress dashboard, select Plugins > Add New from the dashboard menu …
In the Add Plugins page type “visualizer” into the search field and click enter …
Locate the item 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 area …
After the 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 brings up the plugin’s Visualizer Library options screen …
When you first install the plugin, this section will be empty.
Your next step is to add the charts and graphs to your library that you will want to insert into your posts and pages.
Visualizer Configuration
To add a new graph or chart to the Visualizer library, click on ‘Add New’ …
An image gallery displaying all of 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 …
Your graph/chart type will open up in a lightbox.
The next step is to upload a CSV file that contains the data you want your chart or graph to be populated with …
When creating your CSV data file, make sure that:
- The first row includes your column headings.
- The second row contains the series type (e.g. boolean, timeofday, etc.)
The screenshot below shows how to format your data as per the requirements above …
If you are not sure how to format your data CSV, just use the sample file 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 your CSV file from your computer select ‘From Computer‘ …
Use the browser to locate and select your file and then click on ‘Open‘ …
The plugin will import your data and display it using the graph/chart type chosen …
Upload CSV File From The Web
For a step-by-step tutorial that explains how to create, save and publish data to a Visualizer chart or graph using Google Spreadsheet, see the article below:
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 correct data), and then click ‘Next‘ …
Depending on the chart or graph type selected, the plugin displays a range of customization options …
The plugin gives you complete control over your information, and updates your display in real time …
For example, the pie chart offers various configurable options, such as:
- General Settings – Configure chart title settings, 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 looks, click on the ‘Create Chart’ button …
The new chart or graph will be added to the Visualizer ‘Library’ …
Note that every visual element is given a unique ID displayed as a shortcode. As you will see shortly, this allows you to easily embed charts and graphs into your content …
Graphs and charts added to the Visualizer Library can be accessed by type …
After adding a new element to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit its details, clone it, or trash it …
Plugin Usage
After creating a graph or chart and adding it to the Library, adding it to pages or posts is quite 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‘ …
Select the element to be inserted into your content and click on the “insert” icon …
This adds a shortcode for the element into your content …
After you have finished adding your item, click on Publish to publish (or update) your content …
Once your post/page has been published, click ‘View post’ to see the result …
Your post or page displays the graph or chart in your content …
As mentioned previously, the plugin also displays responsive charts and graphs for mobile browsing …
As you can see, WordPress Visualizer allows you to insert and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can modify your data and the changes will automatically be reflected throughout your website. This makes working with dynamic graph data in WordPress very efficient.
The developers of this plugin have created a series of tutorials you can use to learn how to edit, customize and use WordPress Visualizer.
For tutorials on editing, cloning, deleting and adding data to your charts, go to the site below:
Congratulations! Now you know how to easily insert dynamic pie charts and graphs into your WordPress pages with WordPress Visualizer plugin.
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