How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress
No doubt you’re familiar with the adage “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This certainly applies when you’re presenting or explaining complex information.
Using charts and graphs is great for breaking up content that has a disproportionate amount of text, and making statistical data a whole lot easier to understand.
You can use tables to present information, but if you want your audience to try and make sense of complex information with figures, trends and relationships quickly, then charts and graphs are perfect for helping them interpret the data.
Charts and graphs help you explain complex information so your audience can more easily interpret it!
If you want to present dynamic visual content on your WordPress site using graphs and charts, this step-by-step tutorial will show you how to create and add colorful and updatable charts to WordPress that:
- Your site visitors can interact with
- Allows you to add graph or chart data from your computer or a web-based source of data
- Dynamically resizes for mobile users
If you are displaying visual data like bar charts, comparison bars or trending graphs that contain static information (e.g. historical data), a simple method you can use is to create your graphs or charts using a desktop application, convert these into .jpg or .png files and then simply add the images to your posts or pages.
Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins
If you want to add dynamic bars and pie charts to WordPress with no coding skills required, the easiest way to do this is to use a plugin.
Fortunately, there is a great free WordPress plugin that is simple to install, easy-to-use and allows you to not only create stunning and mobile-responsive charts and graphs, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with updatable data.
Visualizer Plugin For WordPress
Visualizer URL
You can install the plugin from your WordPress dashboard (explained further down the page), or download the WordPress Visualizer plugin here:
http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer
Visualizer Plugin Description
WP Visualizer is a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that lets you create, manage and insert great-looking graphs and charts into your WordPress posts and pages with 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 extra plugins or add-ons are required.
The plugin 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 a flexible and customizable plugin, 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 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 site visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile web browsers without requiring the installation of any extra plugins.
How To Install The Visualizer Plugin
Inside your WP dashboard, select Plugins > Add New from the dashboard menu …
In the Add Plugins screen type “visualizer” into the search field and hit enter …
Locate the entry in the search results screen and click Install Now …
Click OK to proceed …
Activate the plugin after successfully installing it …
You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins area …
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 brings up the plugin’s Visualizer Library page …
When you first install the plugin, the library will contain no charts.
Your next step is to add add charts and graphs to your plugin library.
Plugin Configuration
To add a graph or chart to the Visualizer library, click on Add New …
A page will appear on your screen displaying all the kinds of graphs and charts available.
Select the type of graph or chart 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 with all the data you want your chart or graph to be populated with …
When creating your CSV data file, ensure that:
- Your first row includes the column headings.
- Your second row includes the series type (e.g. boolean, date, etc.)
The screenshot below shows how to format your data as required …
If you are unsure about how to format your CSV file, simply refer to the sample CSV file provided 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 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 imports the data and displays 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 your data, make sure that all of your information is correct (if not, click on the ‘Back’ button and reupload a data file with the right data), and click ‘Next‘ …
Depending on the chart or graph type you have selected, the plugin will display a number of customization options …
The plugin gives you complete control of your chart or graph, and updates your display in real time …
For example, the pie chart offers various configurable options, such as:
- 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 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’re satisfied with how your chart or graph appears, click Create Chart …
The new chart or graph 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 very soon, this lets you add charts and graphs to your content quickly and easily …
Graphs and charts added to the Visualizer Library can be accessed by type …
After an element has been added to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit it, clone it, or trash it …
Visualizer Usage
After creating a chart or graph and adding it to the Library, it’s easy to insert it into a page.
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 add to your content and click the “insert” icon …
This adds a shortcode into your content …
After you have added your shortcode, click on Publish to publish (or update) your post or page …
After publishing your post, click ‘View post’ to see it …
You will see your graph in the content …
As mentioned previously, the plugin also displays responsive visual elements for mobile devices …
As you can see, the Visualizer plugin lets you insert 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 great if you’re adding interactive graph information in WordPress.
The developers of this plugin have created a number of step-by-step tutorials you can use to learn how to edit, customize and use the Visualizer plugin for WordPress.
For additional tutorials on editing, copying, deleting and adding data to your charts, refer to the site below:
Congratulations! Now you know how to easily insert colorful pie charts and graphs into WordPress.
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