How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress
You’re probably familiar with the saying “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This is certainly true when you’re trying to present and explain complex information.
Using graphs and charts is useful for making technical or statistical data a whole lot easier to understand.
You can present information with tables, but if you want people to try and interpret complex information with figures, trends or comparisons more easily, then charts and graphs let you present the data in an intelligent and meaningful manner that can be easily understood.
Charts and graphs help explain complex data so people can more easily understand it!
Need to add charts or graphs to your WordPress pages and posts? This step-by-step tutorial shows you how to use WordPress Visualizer – a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that lets you create, manage and embed great-looking charts and graphs into your WordPress posts and pages in just a few mouse clicks that:
- Your visitors can interact with
- Lets you add data from your hard drive or an online source of data
- Will resize dynamically for mobile viewing
If you are displaying visual data like bar charts, comparison bars or trending graphs that contain static information (e.g. historical data), an easier way to present this data is to create the charts or graphs using an image editing application, convert these into jpg or png files and then simply insert the images into your site content.
Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins
If you want to create interactive bars and pie graphs in WordPress with no coding skills required, the easiest way to do this is to use a plugin.
Fortunately, there is a great free plugin for WordPress that is simple to install, easy-to-use and allows you to not only create attractive and mobile-responsive graphs and charts, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with dynamic content.
WP Plugin: Visualizer
Visualizer URL
You can install the plugin inside your WordPress dashboard (see further down the page), or access and download WP Visualizer here:
http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer
Plugin Description
Visualizer is an easy-to-use and powerful plugin for WordPress that lets you create, manage and embed interactive graphs and charts into your WordPress posts and pages in 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 addons are needed.
The plugin also comes with a variety of charts 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
The plugin 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 your site’s design. A number of options are available for each chart that allow you to customize their settings.
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 having to install any additional software.
Plugin Installation
Inside your WP dashboard, select Plugins > Add New from the dashboard menu …
In the Add Plugins screen type in “visualizer” into the search field and click enter …
Locate the plugin in the search results screen and click the “Install Now” button …
Click OK to go ahead …
Activate the plugin after installation is successful …
You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins page …
After your plugin has been activated, click on Library …
You can get to the plugin’s ‘library’ screen by choosing Media > Visualizer Library in your admin menu …
This brings up the plugin’s Visualizer Library section …
When you first install the plugin, the library will contain no charts.
The next step is to add add charts and graphs to your plugin library.
How To Configure The Plugin
To add a graph or chart to the library, click on ‘Add New’ …
You will be presented with all the kinds of charts and graphs available.
Select the type of chart or graph you would like to create and click on the ‘Next’ button …
Your graph/chart type will open up in a lightbox.
The next step is to upload a CSV file with your data …
When creating your CSV data file, ensure that:
- Your first row includes your column headings.
- Your second row includes the series type (e.g. string, timeofday, etc.)
The screenshot below shows how to format your data correctly …
If you are unsure about how to format your data CSV, just study the sample provided with the plugin.
Next, select your data source (‘From Computer’ or ‘From Web’) in the ‘Upload CSV File’ section.
Upload CSV File From Computer
To upload a CSV file and data from your hard drive select ‘From Computer‘ …
Locate and select your data file and then click on ‘Open‘ …
The plugin imports your data from the CSV file and displays it using the graph/chart type selected …
Upload CSV File From The Web
For a step-by-step tutorial that explains 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 the information is correct (if not, click on the ‘Back’ button and reupload a new data file with the right data), and click ‘Next‘ …
Depending on the chart or graph type you’ve picked, the plugin will display various customization options and settings …
The plugin gives you total control over your information, 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 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 the look of your graph or chart, click on the ‘Create Chart’ button …
Your graph or chart will be added to your ‘Visualizer Library’ section …
Note that new elements are given a unique ID displayed in a shortcode. As you will see in a moment, this lets you add charts and graphs to your WordPress content quickly and easily …
Graphs and charts added to the Visualizer Library can easily be accessed by their type …
After adding a new chart or graph to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit it, clone it, or trash it …
Visualizer Usage
After you’ve created a new chart or graph and added it to the Library, adding it to posts and pages is quite simple.
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 Add Media …
Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …
Select the chart or graph to be inserted into your content and click the “insert” icon …
This will add a shortcode for the element into your content …
Once you have added the item, click on Publish to publish (or update) your post or page …
After publishing your page/post, click ‘View post’ to see the end result …
The item will show up in the location you specified …
As mentioned previously, Visualizer also displays responsive charts for mobile users …
As you can see, Visualizer allows you to insert 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 adding dynamic graph data in WordPress really efficient.
The plugin developers have created a number of step-by-step tutorials you can refer to to learn how to edit, customize and use the plugin.
For additional tutorials on editing, cloning, deleting and adding data to your charts, go to the site below:
Congratulations! Now you know how to insert mobile-responsive bar charts and graphs into your WordPress posts and pages.
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