How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress
You’ve heard the saying “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This is certainly true when you’re presenting or explaining data.
Graphs and charts help to break up long text passages, and make data simpler and easier to grasp.
You can present data with tables, but if you want people to try and make sense of complex information with numbers, trends or comparisons more easily, then graphs and charts are perfect for helping them understand the data.
Graphs and charts help present complex data so people can more easily understand it!
Need to add charts and graphs to your WordPress posts and pages? This tutorial shows you how to use WordPress Visualizer – an easy-to-use and powerful plugin for WordPress that lets you create, manage and insert great-looking and mobile-responsive graphs and charts into your WordPress posts and pages that:
- Your visitors can engage with
- Allows you to upload graph or chart data from your computer or an online source of data
- Is dynamically responsive for mobile browsing
If you are displaying visual data like pie charts, comparison data or trending graphs containing static information (e.g. historical data), an easier way to display this information is to create the graphs or charts using a desktop application, convert these into .jpg and .png images and then simply insert your images into your web content.
Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins
If you want to create dynamic bar charts and graphs in WordPress with no coding skills required, the easiest way to do this is to use a plugin.
Fortunately, there is a plugin for WordPress that is simple to install, easy-to-use and allows you to not only create stunning 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 in your WordPress dashboard (we will explain how to do this further down the page), or download the WordPress Visualizer plugin from the link below:
http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer
Visualizer Description
WP Visualizer is a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that allows you to create, manage and insert beautiful charts and graphs 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 additional components are needed.
WordPress Visualizer also comes with 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 flexible and customizable, allowing you to use Google Chart Tools with their default setting, or configure an extensive set of options to match your web design. Several 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 site visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile web browsers without requiring the installation of extra plugins.
Plugin Installation
From your WP dashboard, select Plugins > Add New from the main menu …
In the Add Plugins screen type search for “visualizer” and click enter …
Locate the item in the search results section and click Install Now …
Click OK to proceed …
Activate the plugin …
You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins page …
After the plugin has been activated, click on Library …
You can get to the plugin’s ‘library’ screen by selecting Media > Visualizer Library in the dashboard menu …
This brings up the plugin’s Visualizer Library section …
When you first install 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.
How To Configure The Visualizer Plugin
To add a graph or chart to the library, click on the Add New button …
You will see all of the default kinds of graphs and charts available.
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 lightbox.
The next step is to upload a CSV file containing the data you would like your chart or graph to be populated with …
When creating your CSV data file, ensure that:
- Your first row includes your column headings.
- The second row includes the series type (e.g. number, timeofday, etc.)
The screenshot below shows how to format your data as required …
If you are not sure how to format your CSV file, simply refer to the sample 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 hard drive select ‘From Computer‘ …
Use the browser to locate and select your file and then click on ‘Open‘ …
The plugin will now import the data and display it using the graph/chart type 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, make sure that all of your information is correct (if not, click on the ‘Back’ button and reupload a new data file with the correct data), and then click ‘Next‘ …
Depending on the chart or graph type selected, the plugin displays various customization options and 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 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 are happy with how your chart or graph is looking, click on the ‘Create Chart’ button …
Your new graph or chart will be added to your ‘Visualizer Library’ section …
Note that new visual elements are given a unique ID displayed in a shortcode. As you will see in a moment, this lets you easily insert graphs and charts into your content …
Charts and graphs added to the Visualizer Library can be accessed by their type …
After a new element has been added to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit its details, clone it, or delete it …
Visualizer Plugin Usage
After you’ve created a new element and added it to the Visualizer Library, it’s very simple to insert it into a post or 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 the ‘Add Media‘ button …
Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …
Select the graph or chart to be added to your content and click on the “insert” icon …
This will place a shortcode into your content …
Once you have finished adding the item, click on Publish to publish (or update) your page or post …
After publishing your post/page, click ‘View post’ to see it …
Your post or page displays the visual element in the location you specified …
As mentioned earlier, Visualizer also displays responsive visual elements for mobile viewers …
As you can see, 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 wherever you have inserted your charts, graphs, comparison bars , etc. in your website. This makes working with dynamic chart data in WordPress very efficient.
The developers of this plugin have created a series of step-by-step tutorials you can refer to for ways to edit, customize and use Visualizer.
For tutorials on editing, cloning, deleting and adding data to your charts, go to the website below:
Congratulations! Now you know how to easily create attractive and dynamic pie charts and graphs in WordPress.
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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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