How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress
You’ve no doubt heard the adage “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This is certainly true when you’re trying to present or explain complex data.
Using graphs and charts is useful for breaking up content with a disproportionate amount of text, and making technical or statistical data a whole lot simpler to grasp.
You can use tables to present information, but if you want your audience to try and interpret complex information with numbers, percentages and comparisons quickly, then graphs and charts allow you to present information in an intelligent and meaningful way that can be quickly understood.
Charts and graphs help you explain complex data so your audience can more easily interpret it!
If you need to learn how to display information visually and dynamically on your WordPress site using graphs and charts, this tutorial will show you how to create colorful and updateable charts and graphs to your WordPress pages that:
- Your site visitors can engage with
- Allows you to add chart or graph data from your computer or an online data source
- Dynamically resizes for mobile viewers
If you are displaying visual data like bar charts, comparison graphs or trending graphs containing information that is not going to change (e.g. historical data), a simple method you can use 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 pages or posts.
Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins
If you want to easily embed dynamic bar charts 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 attractive and dynamic charts and graphs, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with dynamic content.
Visualizer
Plugin URL
You can install the plugin from your WP dashboard (explained a little further below), or access and download Visualizer here:
http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer
Plugin Description
WordPress Visualizer is an easy-to-use and powerful plugin that allows you to create, manage and embed colorful graphs and charts into your WordPress posts and pages in just 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 additional add-ons are required.
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
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 the look and feel of your website. A number of options are available for each chart that let you 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 site visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile browsers without requiring the installation of extra software.
Plugin Installation
From your WP administration area, select Plugins > Add New from the main sidebar menu …
In the Add Plugins screen type in search for “visualizer” and click enter …
Locate the entry in the search results area and click the “Install Now” button …
Click OK to continue …
Activate the plugin …
You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins area …
After the plugin has been activated, click on Library …
You can also get to the plugin’s ‘library’ screen by selecting Media > Visualizer Library in the dashboard menu …
This takes you to the plugin’s Visualizer Library screen …
After installing the plugin, the library contains no charts.
The next step is to add add charts and graphs to your library.
How To Configure The Plugin
To add a new graph or chart to the library, click on the ‘Add New’ button …
A visual gallery displaying all of the types of charts and graphs available will come up on your screen.
Select the graph or chart type you would like to create and click on the ‘Next’ button …
The selected graph/chart type will open up in a lightbox.
The next step is to upload a CSV file that contains the data you want your chart or graph to be populated with …
When creating your CSV data file, ensure that:
- The first row contains the column headings.
- The second row contains the series type (e.g. string, datetime, etc.)
The screenshot below shows how to format your data as per the requirements above …
If you are not sure how to format your data CSV, just use the sample supplied with the plugin.
Once you have done this, 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 data file and click on ‘Open‘ …
The plugin will import your data 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, 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 new data file containing the right data), and then click ‘Next‘ …
Depending on the chart or graph type you’ve chosen, the plugin will display various customization options and settings …
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 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 are happy with the look of your graph or chart, click on the ‘Create Chart’ button …
The new chart or graph will now be added to the ‘Visualizer Library’ section …
Note that each new element is given a unique ID displayed as a shortcode. As you will see in just a moment, this allows you to embed charts and graphs into your WordPress posts and pages quickly …
Graphs and charts added to the Visualizer Library can be accessed by their type …
After an item has been added to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit its details, duplicate it, or delete it …
Plugin Usage
After creating a graph or chart and adding it to the Visualizer Library, it’s really simple to add it to your pages or posts.
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 add to your content and click the “insert” icon …
This will place a shortcode for the element into your content …
After you have finished adding the element, click on Publish to publish (or update) your post or page …
After the post/page has been updated, click ‘View post’ to see the results …
Your page or post displays the chart in the location you specified …
As mentioned previously, the plugin also displays responsive charts for mobile browsing …
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 throughout your site. This makes working with dynamic graph data in WordPress very easy.
The developers of this plugin have created a number of 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, go to the website below:
Congratulations! Now you know how to easily insert eye-catching and dynamic bar charts and graphs into WordPress.
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