How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress
No doubt you’re familiar with the saying “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This certainly applies when you are trying to present and explain data.
Using charts and graphs is great for making technical or statistical data more easily digestible.
You can use tables to present data, but if you want your audience to try and interpret complex data with figures, percentages and relationships easily, then graphs and charts allow you to present your data in an intelligent and meaningful way that can be quickly understood.
Graphs and charts help you present complex information so your audience can more easily interpret it!
Need to add charts and graphs to your WordPress content? This step-by-step tutorial shows you how to use WordPress Visualizer – a simple, easy to use and powerful WP plugin that allows you to create, manage and embed great-looking graphs and charts into your WordPress posts and pages with just a few simple steps that:
- Your visitors can engage with
- Allows you to add chart or graph data from your hard drive or a web-based source of data
- Will dynamically resize for viewing on mobile devices
If you are displaying visual data like bar charts, comparison charts or trending graphs containing static information (e.g. historical data), a simple method you can use to present the information is to create the charts or graphs using an image editing application, convert these into images and then simply add your files and an image to your post or page.
Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins
If you want to easily insert interactive bars and pie charts into 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 users that is simple to install, easy-to-use and allows you to not only create appealing and dynamic charts and graphs, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with dynamic data.
WordPress Plugin: Visualizer
Visualizer Plugin URL
You can install the plugin from your WP dashboard (explained a little further down the page), or access and download the WordPress Visualizer plugin the WordPress free plugin repository using the link below:
http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer
Visualizer Description
Visualizer is a simple, easy to use and powerful WordPress plugin that lets you create, manage and insert dynamic graphs into your WordPress posts and pages with 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 addons are required.
WordPress 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
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. Various 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 browsers without requiring the installation of any extra plugins.
How To Install WordPress Visualizer
Inside your WordPress admin area, select Plugins > Add New from the main menu …
In the Add Plugins screen type search for “visualizer” and click enter …
Locate Visualizer in the search results screen 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 page …
After your plugin has been activated, click on Library …
You can get to the plugin’s ‘library’ screen by selecting Media > Visualizer Library from your admin menu …
This takes you to the plugin’s Visualizer Library page …
When you first install the plugin, this section will be empty.
The next step is to add add charts and graphs to your library.
Visualizer Configuration
To add a new graph or chart to the library, click on the Add New button …
A visual gallery displaying all the kinds of charts available will load on your screen.
Select the chart or graph type you would like to create and click on the ‘Next’ button …
Your selected graph/chart type will pop up in a lightbox.
The next step is to upload a CSV file that contains your data …
When creating your CSV data file, make sure that:
- The first row includes the column headings.
- The second row includes the series type (e.g. number, timeofday, etc.)
The screenshot below shows how to format your data correctly …
If you are unsure about how to format your CSV file, simply study the sample spreadsheet supplied with the plugin.
Next, 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 then click on ‘Open‘ …
The plugin will import your data from the CSV file and display 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, go here:
After importing your data, check that all of your information is correct (if not, click on the ‘Back’ button and reupload a data file containing the correct data), and click ‘Next‘ …
Depending on the chart or graph type you’ve picked, the plugin will display a range of customization settings …
The WordPress Visualizer plugin gives you complete control over 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 the look of your graph or chart, click Create Chart …
The graph or chart will be added to the Visualizer ‘Library’ …
Note that each element is given a unique ID displayed in a shortcode. As you will see shortly, this allows you to add charts and graphs to your WordPress pages easily …
Charts and graphs added to the Visualizer Library can be accessed by their type …
After a chart or graph has been added to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit its details, clone it, or trash it …
Plugin Usage
After creating a new element and adding it to the Visualizer Library, adding it to a page or post 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 your content and click on the ‘Add Media‘ button …
Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …
Find the chart or graph you want to insert into your content and click the “insert” icon …
This adds a shortcode for the element into your content …
After you have finished adding the shortcode, click on Publish to publish (or update) your post or page …
After publishing the post/page, click ‘View post’ to see the result …
You will see the item in the location you specified …
As mentioned earlier, the plugin also displays responsive charts and graphs for mobile devices …
As you can see, Visualizer allows you to add and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can modify your data and the changes will automatically be reflected wherever you have inserted your charts, graphs, comparison bars , etc. in your site. This makes working with interactive chart 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 the Visualizer plugin for WordPress.
For additional tutorials on editing, cloning, deleting and adding data to your charts, refer to the website below:
Congratulations! Now you know how to easily create great-looking and interactive charts and graphs in WordPress with WP Visualizer.
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"This is an awesome training series. I have a pretty good understanding of WordPress already, but this is helping me to move somewhere from intermediate to advanced user!" - Kim Lednum
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