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’re presenting or explaining data.
Using graphs and charts is useful for breaking up long passage of technical information, and making statistical data and information a lot simpler to grasp.
You can present information using tables, but if you want people to try and interpret complex data with numbers, percentages and relationships quickly, then charts and graphs are perfect for helping them interpret your information.
Charts and graphs help you explain complex data so people can more easily interpret it!
Need to add charts and graphs to WordPress? This step-by-step tutorial shows you how to use WP Visualizer – a simple, easy to use and powerful WordPress plugin that lets you create, manage and insert great-looking charts into your WordPress posts and pages that:
- Your visitors can engage with
- Lets you add data from your hard drive or an online source of data
- Resizes dynamically for mobile viewing
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 present your data is to create your graphs or charts using an image editing application, convert these into images and then simply insert your files and an image into your web content.
Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins
If you want to add dynamic bars and pie graphs to your 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 updatable data.
Visualizer Plugin For WordPress
Plugin URL
You can install the plugin in your WordPress dashboard (see a little further below), or download Visualizer here:
http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer
Plugin Description
Visualizer is an easy-to-use and powerful tool that allows you to create, manage and embed great-looking and interactive charts into your WordPress posts and pages with 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 additional add-ons are required.
WordPress Visualizer also comes with a variety of charts optimized for 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 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 site visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile device browsers without having to install any additional software.
How To Install The Plugin
From your WP administration area, select Plugins > Add New from the dashboard menu …
In the Add Plugins page type in “visualizer” into the search field and hit enter …
Locate the plugin in the search results section and click the “Install Now” button …
Click OK to continue …
Activate the plugin after successfully installing it …
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 admin menu …
This takes you to the plugin’s Visualizer Library section …
When you first install the plugin, the library section will be empty.
The next step is to add the charts and graphs to your library that you will want to insert into your pages or posts.
How To Configure The Visualizer Plugin
To add a chart or graph to the Visualizer library, click on ‘Add New’ …
You will be presented with all the different types of charts and graphs available.
Select the graph or chart type you would like to create and click on the ‘Next’ button …
The selected graph/chart type will pop up in a lightbox.
The next step is to upload a CSV file containing the data you want to populate your chart or graph with …
When creating your CSV data file, make sure that:
- Your first row includes the column headings.
- The second row includes the series type (e.g. string, timeofday, etc.)
The screenshot below shows how to format your data …
If you are not sure how to format your CSV file, just use the sample spreadsheet supplied with the plugin.
Next, select the data source (‘From Computer’ or ‘From Web’) in the ‘Upload CSV File’ section.
Upload CSV File From Computer
To upload a CSV file from your hard drive select ‘From Computer‘ …
Locate and select your data file and click on ‘Open‘ …
The plugin will import your data from the CSV file 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, see the article below:
After importing the data, check that all of the information is correct (if not, click on the ‘Back’ button and reupload a new data file with the correct data), and click ‘Next‘ …
Depending on the chart or graph type you’ve chosen, the plugin displays various customization options and settings …
The plugin gives you full control of your chart or graph, and updates your display in real time …
For example, the pie chart offers many configurable options, including:
- General Settings – Configure settings for the chart’s title, 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’re satisfied with the look of your chart or graph, click Create Chart …
Your graph or chart will now be added to your ‘Visualizer Library’ section …
Note that new visual elements are given a unique ID displayed as a shortcode. As you will see in a moment, this allows you to embed graphs and charts into your content 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, it’s simple to add it to your content.
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 Add Media …
Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …
Find the graph or chart you want to insert into your content and click the “insert” icon …
This will add a shortcode for the element into your content …
Once you have finished adding the element, click on Publish to publish (or update) your content …
Once the page has been updated, click ‘View post’ to see it …
Your page or post displays the item in where you’ve inserted the shortcode …
As mentioned previously, Visualizer also displays responsive visual elements for mobile viewing …
As you can see, WordPress Visualizer allows you to add and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can edit your data and your changes will automatically be reflected wherever you have inserted your charts, graphs, comparison bars , etc. in your site. This is one of the great benefits of using the Visualizer plugin if you’re managing dynamic chart data in WordPress.
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 additional tutorials on editing, cloning, deleting and adding data to your charts, refer to the website below:
Congratulations! Now you know how to create stunning and interactive bar charts and graphs in WordPress with WP Visualizer.
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