How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress
You’ve no doubt heard the old adage “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This certainly applies when you are presenting or explaining complex data.
Using charts and graphs is great for breaking up long chunks of text, and making statistical data and information simpler and easier to grasp.
You can use tables to present information, but if you want people to try and make sense of complex data with figures, trends and relationships easily, then graphs and charts are perfect for helping them understand your data.
Graphs and charts help present complex data so people can more easily understand it!
Need to add charts or graphs to WordPress? This tutorial shows you how to use WP Visualizer – a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that allows you to create, manage and insert colorful and dynamic charts and graphs into your WordPress posts and pages with just a few simple steps that:
- Your visitors can engage with
- Lets you add chart or graph data from your computer or an online source of data
- Resizes dynamically for mobile users
If you plan to display visual data like bar charts, comparison bars or trending graphs containing information that is not going to change (e.g. historical data), an easier way to display your data is to create the charts or graphs using a desktop application, convert these into .jpg or .png files and then simply add your image to your page or post.
Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins
If you want to embed dynamic bars and pie graphs into WordPress content with no coding skills required, the easiest way to do this is to use a plugin.
Fortunately, there is a great plugin for WordPress that is simple to install, easy-to-use and allows you to not only create beautiful and dynamic charts and graphs, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with updateable information.
Visualizer
Visualizer URL
You can install the plugin in your WP dashboard (explained further below), or download Visualizer here:
http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer
Plugin Description
WP Visualizer is a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that lets you create, manage and embed great-looking charts into your WordPress posts and pages with 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 additional plugins are required.
Visualizer also contains a variety of built-in 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 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 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 blog or site visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile web browsers without requiring the installation of additional plugins.
How To Install The Plugin
Inside your WordPress dashboard, select Plugins > Add New from the navigation sidebar menu …
In the Add Plugins screen type “visualizer” into the search field and click enter …
Locate the item in the search results section and click Install Now …
Click OK to continue …
Activate the plugin …
You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins section …
After the plugin has been activated, click on Library …
You can get to the plugin’s ‘library’ screen by choosing Media > Visualizer Library in your dashboard menu …
This brings up the plugin’s Visualizer Library section …
When you first install the plugin, the library section will be empty.
Your next step is to add the charts and graphs to your library that you will want to display in your pages and posts.
Plugin Configuration
To add a graph or chart to the plugin’s library, click on the Add New button …
You will see all of the types of graphs available.
Select the chart or graph 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, ensure that:
- The first row includes your column headings.
- The second row includes 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 data CSV, simply use the sample file provided with the plugin.
Once you have completed this step, 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‘ …
Use the browser to locate and select your data file and click on ‘Open‘ …
The plugin will now import your data from the CSV file and display it using the graph/chart type you have selected …
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, 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 then click ‘Next‘ …
Depending on the chart or graph type you have chosen, the plugin displays various customization settings …
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 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 the way your chart or graph is looking, click Create Chart …
The new chart or graph will be added to the ‘Visualizer Library’ section …
Note that each element is given a unique ID displayed as a shortcode. As you will see shortly, this lets you add graphs and charts to your WordPress posts very easily …
Charts and graphs added to the Visualizer Library can easily be accessed by type …
After a new chart or graph has been added to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit it, duplicate it, or trash it …
Visualizer Usage
After creating a new chart or graph and adding it to the Library, adding it to posts or pages is really simple.
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‘ …
Select the element to be inserted into your content and click on the “insert” icon …
This inserts a shortcode for the element into your content …
Once you have finished adding the element, click on Publish to publish (or update) your page or post …
Once the post has been updated, click ‘View post’ to see the results …
You will see the graph in the location you specified …
As mentioned previously, Visualizer also displays responsive visual elements for mobile browsers …
As you can see, Visualizer allows you to add and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can update your data and your changes will automatically be reflected wherever you have inserted your charts, graphs, comparison bars , etc. in your site. This is a real time-saver if you’re adding dynamic graph information 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 the Visualizer plugin for WordPress.
For tutorials on editing, cloning, deleting and adding data to your charts, go to the website below:
Congratulations! Now you know how to easily insert appealing charts and graphs into your WordPress pages with WordPress Visualizer plugin.
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