How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress
You’ve heard the old adage “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This certainly applies when you are trying to present or explain data.
Using charts and graphs can help to break up long or boring content, and make technical data more easily digestible.
You can present information using tables, but if you want people to try and interpret complex information with figures, trends and comparisons easily, then charts and graphs are perfect for helping them interpret your information.
Charts and graphs help explain complex data so your audience can more easily interpret it!
If you need to present dynamic visual content on your WordPress site using graphs and charts, this tutorial will show you exactly how to create and add colourful and updateable charts to your WP pages that:
- Your site visitors can engage with
- Allows you to upload data from your hard drive or a web-based data source
- Dynamically resizes for mobile devices
If you plan to display visual data like bar charts, comparison graphs or trending graphs that contain static information (e.g. historical data), an easier way to present this information is to create your graphs or charts using an image editing application, convert these into jpg or png files and then simply add the image files to your pages.
Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins
If you want to easily create dynamic bar charts and pie graphs in your WordPress pages with no coding skills required, the easiest way to do this is to use a plugin.
Fortunately, there is a great plugin for WordPress users that is simple to install, easy-to-use and allows you to not only create colorful and dynamic graphs and charts, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with updateable information.
Visualizer
Visualizer Plugin URL
You can install the plugin in your WordPress dashboard (explained further below), or access and download the WP Visualizer plugin here:
http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer
Visualizer Plugin Description
WP Visualizer is an easy-to-use and powerful plugin that allows you to create, manage and insert stunning graphs and charts into your WordPress posts and pages in just a few mouse clicks.
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 extra plugins or add-ons are needed.
The plugin also contains a variety of built-in that are optimized to address your data visualization needs, including:
- Line chart
- Area chart
- Bar chart
- Column chart
- Pie chart
- Geo chart
- Gauge chart
- Candlestick chart
- Scatter chart
WordPress 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 site’s design. A number of options are available for each chart that allow you to fully customize their settings.
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 web browsers without having to install any extra software.
Plugin Installation
Inside your WP admin area, select Plugins > Add New from the navigation sidebar menu …
In the Add Plugins screen type in search for “visualizer” and hit enter …
Locate the item in the search results screen and click Install Now …
Click OK to go ahead …
Activate the plugin after installing it …
You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins section …
Once the plugin has been activated, click on Library …
You can also get to the plugin’s ‘library’ screen by choosing Media > Visualizer Library from the main menu …
This takes you to the plugin’s Visualizer Library options …
After installing the plugin, the library will contain no charts.
Your next step is to add the charts and graphs to your library that you will want to insert into your content.
Visualizer Configuration
To add a new graph or chart to the Visualizer library, click on the ‘Add New’ button …
An image gallery displaying all of the default types of graphs 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 pop up in a new window.
The next step is to upload a CSV file containing your data …
When creating your CSV data file, ensure that:
- Your first row contains the column headings.
- The second row contains the series type (e.g. string, date, etc.)
The screenshot below shows how to format your data as required …
If you are not sure how to format your data CSV, just study the sample spreadsheet supplied 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 the CSV file and data from your computer select ‘From Computer‘ …
Locate and select your file and click on ‘Open‘ …
The plugin imports your data and displays 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, see the article below:
After importing your data, check that all of the information is correct (if not, click on the ‘Back’ button and reupload a data file containing the right data), and click ‘Next‘ …
Depending on the chart or graph type selected, the plugin will display various customization options …
Visualizer gives you complete 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 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 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 the look of your graph or chart, click on the ‘Create Chart’ button …
Your chart or graph will be added to the Visualizer ‘Library’ …
Note that every element is given a unique ID displayed as a shortcode. As you will see in a moment, this allows you to insert graphs and charts into your WordPress pages and posts quickly …
Graphs and charts added to the Visualizer Library can easily be accessed by their type …
After an element has been added to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit it, clone it, or trash it …
Plugin Usage
After creating a chart or graph and adding it to Visualizer, adding it to a 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 the ‘Add Media‘ button …
Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …
Select the chart or graph you want to add to your content and click 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 …
After publishing your page, click ‘View post’ to see the end result …
Your visual element will show up in the location you specified …
As mentioned earlier, the plugin also displays responsive charts for mobile devices …
As you can see, Visualizer lets you insert and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can edit your data and the changes will automatically be reflected throughout your site. This is very convenient if you’re working with dynamic chart information in WordPress.
The developers of this plugin have created a series of tutorials you can refer to for ways to edit, customize and use Visualizer.
For additional tutorials on editing, copying, deleting and adding data to your charts, go to the website below:
Congratulations! Now you know how to easily create appealing and dynamic pie charts and graphs in WordPress.
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