How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress
You’ve heard the old saying “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This is certainly true when you’re presenting or explaining complex information.
Graphs and charts help to break up long text passages, and make technical data more easily digestible.
You can present data using tables, but if you want your audience to try and make sense of complex information with numbers, trends and relationships more easily, then charts and graphs are perfect for helping them visualize your information.
Graphs and charts help explain complex data so your audience can more easily understand it!
Need to add charts or graphs to your WordPress content? 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 attractive and mobile-responsive graphs and charts into your WordPress posts and pages that:
- Your web visitors can engage with
- Lets you upload chart or graph data from your hard drive or a web-based source of data
- Will dynamically resize for mobile users
If you plan to display visual data like pie charts, comparison data or trending graphs which contain information that is not going to change (e.g. historical data), an easier way to display the information is to create your graphs or charts using a desktop application, convert these into jpg or png images and then simply add the image to your page or post.
Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins
If you want to easily create dynamic bar charts and pie charts in WordPress with no coding skills required, the easiest way to do this is to use a plugin.
Fortunately, there is a great WordPress plugin 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 – WP Plugin
Plugin URL
You can install the plugin in your WordPress dashboard (explained a little further below), or access and download Visualizer the WP free plugin directory using the link below:
http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer
Visualizer Plugin Description
The Visualizer plugin is a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that allows you to create, manage and insert eye-catching charts and graphs into your WordPress posts and pages with a few mouse clicks.
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 extra plugins or add-ons are required.
WordPress Visualizer also comes with 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. Several options are available for each chart that let you fully customize their look and feel.
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 visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile devices without having to install any extra plugins.
How To Install The Visualizer Plugin
From your WordPress admin area, select Plugins > Add New from the navigation sidebar menu …
In the Add Plugins screen type in “visualizer” into the search field and hit enter …
Locate the entry in the search results area and click the “Install Now” button …
Click OK to go ahead …
Activate the plugin after installing it …
You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins page …
Once your plugin has been activated, click on Library …
You can also get to the plugin’s ‘library’ screen by selecting Media > Visualizer Library in the main menu …
This brings up the plugin’s Visualizer Library options …
After installing the plugin, the library contains no charts.
The next step is to add add charts and graphs to your plugin library.
How To Configure The Visualizer Plugin
To add a new chart or graph to the library, click on the ‘Add New’ button …
A page will load in your screen displaying all of the types of charts available.
Select the chart or graph type you would like to create and click on the ‘Next’ button …
The graph/chart type will open up in a new window.
The next step is to upload a CSV file with the data you would like to populate your chart or graph with …
When creating your CSV data file, ensure that:
- The first row includes the column headings.
- The second row contains 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 supplied with the plugin.
Once you have completed this step, 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 computer select ‘From Computer‘ …
Locate and select your file and then click on ‘Open‘ …
The plugin imports the data and displays 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, see the article below:
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 then click ‘Next‘ …
Depending on the chart or graph type you’ve picked, the plugin will display a range of customization options …
The WordPress Visualizer plugin gives you full control over your chart or graph, 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 chart or graph, click Create Chart …
Your new chart or graph will be added to the Visualizer ‘Library’ …
Note that new visual elements are given a unique ID displayed in a shortcode. As you will see in just a moment, this allows you to easily insert graphs and charts into your content …
Charts and graphs added to the Visualizer Library can be accessed by their type …
After adding a new chart or graph to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit its details, clone it, or trash it …
Visualizer Plugin Usage
After creating a new graph or chart and adding it to the Library, it’s easy to insert it into posts or pages.
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 the ‘Add Media‘ button …
Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …
Find the chart or graph you want to insert into your content and click on the “insert” icon …
This will add a shortcode into your content …
After you have added your visual element, click on Publish to publish (or update) your post or page …
Once the post/page has been updated, click ‘View post’ to see the result …
The visual element will show up in where you have inserted the shortcode …
As mentioned previously, the plugin also displays responsive charts and graphs for mobile browsing …
As you can see, the Visualizer plugin 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 throughout your site. This is one of the great benefits of using the Visualizer plugin if you’re adding interactive chart information in WordPress.
The developers of this plugin have created a number of step-by-step tutorials you can refer to for ways to edit, customize and use the Visualizer plugin for WordPress.
For tutorials on editing, cloning, deleting and adding data to your charts, visit the website below:
Congratulations! Now you know how to insert eye-catching and mobile-responsive pie charts and graphs into WordPress with WP Visualizer plugin.
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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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