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’re trying to present and explain complex data.
Using charts and graphs is useful for making statistical data simpler and easier to understand.
You can use tables to present data, but if you want people to try and interpret complex data with figures, trends and comparisons easily, then graphs and charts are perfect for helping them understand your data.
Charts and graphs help present complex information so your audience 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 tool that lets you create, manage and insert attractive and interactive charts into your WordPress posts and pages in a few simple steps that:
- Your web visitors can interact with
- Lets you add chart or graph data from your hard drive or an online data source
- Resizes dynamically for mobile browsing
If you plan to display visual data like pie charts, comparison graphs or trending graphs containing static information (e.g. historical data), a simple method you can use to add this information is to create your graphs or charts using an image editing application, convert these into .jpg or .png images and then simply add the images to your posts.
Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins
If you want to easily add dynamic bar charts and pie charts to your WordPress content 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 that is simple to install, easy-to-use and allows you to not only create beautiful and mobile-responsive charts and graphs, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with updateable content.
WordPress Plugin: Visualizer
Visualizer Plugin URL
You can install the plugin from your WP dashboard (explained further down the page), or access and download WP Visualizer here:
http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer
Visualizer Description
Visualizer is an easy-to-use and powerful WP plugin that lets you create, manage and insert stunning charts and 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 components are needed.
The plugin 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
Visualizer is a flexible and customizable plugin, allowing you to use Google Chart Tools with their default setting, or configure an extensive set of options to match the look and feel of your website. Several options are available for each chart that allow you to further 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 devices without requiring the installation of extra software.
Plugin Installation
Inside your WordPress administration area, select Plugins > Add New from the dashboard menu …
In the Add Plugins screen type search for “visualizer” and hit enter …
Locate the plugin in the search results area and click the “Install Now” button …
Click OK to proceed …
Activate the plugin after successfully installing it …
You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins area …
Once your plugin has been activated, click on Library …
You can also get to the plugin’s ‘library’ screen by choosing Media > Visualizer Library in the dashboard menu …
This takes you to the plugin’s Visualizer Library section …
After installing the plugin, the library contains no charts.
The next step is to add the charts and graphs to your library that you plan to display in your posts and pages.
How To Configure The Plugin
To add a new chart or graph to the plugin’s library, click on the ‘Add New’ button …
A gallery displaying all the types 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 selected graph/chart type will pop up in a new window.
The next step is to upload a CSV file with your data …
When creating your CSV data file, make sure that:
- Your first row includes the column headings.
- Your second row contains the series type (e.g. string, datetime, 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 refer to the sample file supplied 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‘ …
Locate and select your data file and click on ‘Open‘ …
The plugin will import your data and display it using the graph/chart type you have selected …
Upload CSV File From The Web
For a step-by-step 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 the 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 displays a number of customization settings and options …
The plugin gives you complete control of your information, 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 the way your chart or graph looks, click on the ‘Create Chart’ button …
The new graph or chart will be added to the Visualizer ‘Library’ …
Note that each visual element is given a unique ID displayed in a shortcode. As you will see in a moment, this allows you to insert charts and graphs into your WordPress posts and pages quickly and easily …
Charts and graphs added to the Visualizer Library can be accessed by their type …
After adding a chart or graph to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit it, duplicate it, or trash it …
Plugin Usage
After you have created a new element and added it to the Library, it’s quite simple to add it to a page.
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 graph or chart to be added to your content and click the “insert” icon …
This adds a shortcode into your content …
Once you have added your element, click on Publish to publish (or update) your content …
After updating your post, click ‘View post’ to see the end result …
You will see the graph in where you placed the shortcode …
As mentioned earlier, Visualizer also displays responsive charts for mobile viewers …
As you can see, WordPress Visualizer allows you to add and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can update your data and the changes will automatically be reflected throughout your site. This makes managing interactive chart data in WordPress very efficient.
The developers of this plugin have created a number of step-by-step tutorials you can refer to to learn how to edit, customize and use Visualizer.
For additional tutorials on editing, copying, deleting and adding data to your charts, go to the site below:
Congratulations! Now you know how to easily add attractive and dynamic pie charts and graphs to your WordPress pages and posts.
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