How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress
You’re probably familiar with the adage “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This is certainly true when you’re trying to present or explain complex information.
Using graphs and charts can help to make technical data more easily digestible.
You can present information with tables, but if you want your audience to try and make sense of complex data with figures, trends and relationships more easily, then charts and graphs allow you to present your data in an intelligent and meaningful way that can be quickly understood.
Charts and graphs help you explain complex data so people can more easily interpret it!
Need to add charts or graphs to your WordPress pages and posts? 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 beautiful graphs into your WordPress posts and pages in a few mouse clicks that:
- Your site visitors can engage with
- Allows you to add graph or chart data from your computer or a web-based source of data
- Resizes dynamically for mobile viewing
If you plan to display visual data like bar charts, comparison charts or trending graphs that contain static information (e.g. historical data), a simple method you can use to present the information is to create your charts or graphs using an image editing application, convert these into images and then simply add the files and an image to your post or page.
Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins
If you want to embed interactive bar charts and pie graphs into WordPress with no coding skills required, the easiest way to do this is to use a plugin.
Fortunately, there is a plugin for WordPress users that is simple to install, easy-to-use and allows you to not only create colorful and interactive graphs and charts, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with updateable data.
Visualizer
Plugin URL
You can install the plugin inside your WordPress dashboard (we show you how to do this further down the page), or access and download WP Visualizer the WP free plugin repository using the link below:
http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer
Plugin Description
WP Visualizer is an easy-to-use and powerful WordPress plugin that lets you create, manage and insert mobile-responsive graphs and charts into your WordPress posts and pages in just a few simple steps.
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 are required.
The plugin also contains a variety of charts 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 the look and feel of your website. Various options are available for each chart that let you 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 any extra plugins.
How To Install The Visualizer Plugin
Inside your WordPress dashboard, select Plugins > Add New from the navigation sidebar menu …
In the Add Plugins page type in search for “visualizer” and hit enter …
Locate the item in the search results area and click Install Now …
Click OK to go ahead …
Activate the plugin after installation is successful …
You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins page …
Once the plugin has been activated, click on Library …
You can also get to the plugin’s ‘library’ screen by selecting Media > Visualizer Library from your dashboard menu …
This brings up the plugin’s Visualizer Library settings …
When you first install the plugin, the library will contain no charts.
The next step is to add add charts and graphs to your library.
Visualizer Plugin Configuration
To add a new graph or chart to the library, click on ‘Add New’ …
An image gallery displaying all of the default types of charts available will come up on your screen.
Select the type of graph or chart you would like to create and click on the ‘Next’ button …
Your selected 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 includes the column headings.
- The second row contains the series type (e.g. boolean, date, etc.)
The screenshot below shows how to format your data …
If you are not sure how to format your CSV file, just download the sample that comes 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 your CSV file and data from your hard drive select ‘From Computer‘ …
Use the browser to locate and select your file and then click on ‘Open‘ …
The plugin imports your data from the CSV file and displays it using the graph/chart type you have 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, 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 data file with the right data), and then click ‘Next‘ …
Depending on the chart or graph type you’ve picked, the plugin will display various customization options and settings …
The WordPress Visualizer plugin gives you complete control of your information, and updates your display in real time …
For example, the pie chart offers many configurable options, including:
- 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 happy with how your graph or chart appears, click Create Chart …
The graph or chart will now be added to your Visualizer ‘Library’ …
Note that every element is given a unique ID displayed in a shortcode. As you will see in just a moment, this lets you insert charts and graphs into your posts and pages quickly and easily …
Charts and graphs added to the Visualizer Library can be accessed by type …
After adding a chart or graph to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit it, clone it, or delete it …
Visualizer Plugin Usage
Once you have created a graph or chart and added it to the Library, it’s easy to insert it into your posts or pages.
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 your content and click on the ‘Add Media‘ button …
Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …
Select the element to be added to your content and click on the “insert” icon …
This adds a shortcode for the element into your content …
After you have added the shortcode, click on Publish to publish (or update) your post or page …
Once your post has been updated, click ‘View post’ to see the result …
The item will show up in the location you specified …
As mentioned earlier, Visualizer also displays responsive graphs and charts for mobile browsers …
As you can see, Visualizer lets you 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 is very convenient if you’re adding dynamic graph data in WordPress.
The developers of this plugin have created a series of step-by-step tutorials you can use to learn how to edit, customize and use WordPress Visualizer.
For tutorials on editing, copying, deleting and adding data to your charts, go to the site below:
Congratulations! Now you know how to insert stunning and mobile-responsive bar charts and graphs into your WordPress content.
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"Wow! I never knew there's so much to learn about WordPress! I bought one of the WordPress for Dummies three years ago, such authors need to be on this course!" - Rich Law, Create A Blog Now
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