The ability to easily add tables to your website can be very useful. Tables are great for sorting and presenting data to people in a format that can make your information easier to understand.
The WordPress visual editor is great, but there are some things that the default editor doesn’t let you do, like being able to easily create tables.
Although you can add tables manually to your content in WordPress if you have knowledge of HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), for most non-technical WordPress users, this is not a feasible option.
Fortunately, WordPress plugins let you do almost anything you can imagine, and creating tables is no exception.
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn how to create and add tables easily into your WordPress posts and pages without requiring knowledge of HTML or CSS or coding skills.
Creating And Adding Tables In WordPress
Follow the step-by-step tutorial below to learn how to easily create and add tables in WordPress using a FREE WordPress plugin called TablePress.
WP Plugin – TablePress
TablePress is a great WordPress plugin that makes creating, editing and managing tables in your WordPress posts and pages simple and easy.
TablePress requires no knowledge or skills coding HTML, CSS, etc. It lets you easily edit table data. You can add any kind of data, even formulas to tables.
An additional JavaScript library can be used to add features like pagination, sorting, filtering, and more for visitors. You can easily insert tables into your posts and pages using shortcodes and even display these inside text widgets.
You can also import and export tables from/to CSV files (e.g. from Excel), HTML files, and JSON.
TablePress was developed by Tobias Bäthge and is licensed as Free Software under GNU General Public License 2 (GPL 2).
How To Use TablePress – Step-By-Step Tutorial
To create and manage tables in WordPress posts and pages, install and activate the TablePress plugin.
Download this plugin here:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/tablepress
Or install it directly from your own WordPress Dashboard …
Once you have installed and activated the plugin, a new menu item will get added to your main menu called TablePress …
Click on TablePress and choose Plugin Options from the submenu list …
The “Plugin Options” page controls your plugin styling and display settings …
For example, in the “User Options” section, you can specify where the TablePress menu entry appears on your WP admin menu.
By default, the menu item appears around the middle of your menu column. If you plan to use this plugin a lot, then you can position the menu option closer to the top of the menu by selecting “Top-level (middle)” on the User Options > Admin menu entry dropdown menu …
The TablePress menu entry now displays closer towards the top area of the menu list …
You can also play with other options in the “Plugin Options” screen, such as table formatting styles, default language, etc. If you don’t need to change this section, simply leave the default options.
With TablePress, tables are created and formatted within the plugin section. Tables are then placed via a shortcode into your WordPress posts and pages. Your table will then display or update after publishing your post.
The advantage of working directly from the plugin is that you can easily modify the information inside your tables without having to manually edit your posts. TablePress then updates all of your table data in all locations where the table has been added to your content.
To add a new table select TablePress > Add New Table …
Type in the table name, an optional description, and the number of rows and columns you would like for your new table into the “Add New Table” form in the Add New tab, then click on the Add Table button to create your new table. You can change the name, description and size of any tables you create at anytime…
Once your new table has been created, it will be listed in the “All Tables” list and get assigned a unique Shortcode ID …
The TablePress shortcode lets you easily insert tables anywhere inside a post or page by simply inserting or copying and pasting the shortcode wherever you want to display a table …
Once you have created a new table, adding content to the table is very easy.
In the “Table Content” section, just click in the cell and either type or paste the content you want to display. You can add text, images and HTML formatting to your content (e.g. bold or italicize words, insert links, etc …)
After your new table has been created, displays additional options for configuring your table.
For example, in the “Table Options” section you can select the first row of your table to be the table header or the last row of the table to be the table footer, display alternate background colors on consecutive rows, highlight a row when visitors hover their mouse over the table, display the table name and description above or below the table, and more …
You can also edit your table after it has been created in the “Table Manipulation” section. You can add links or images, hide, show, insert, delete and duplicate selected rows and columns, add new columns and rows, combine cells, etc …
You can also enable JavaScript library features in your tables, such as allowing your site users to sort, filter and search your table content, change the number of table rows displayed on your content (and also allow users to specify the number of rows displayed), display table information, etc …
You can preview your table anytime, by clicking on the Preview button …
A preview window will open displaying the table. Certain features such as the JavaScript options are disabled in preview mode, but will display when your post or page is published …
Click the Save Changes button when finished to save your table information …
To view a list of all the tables you have created select TablePress > All Tables …
All your tables are listed here. You can edit, see shortcodes, copy, export, delete and preview your tables …
How To Use The Shortcode
You embed a table inside pages and posts using a shortcode.
You can get the shortcode for your tables by clicking on the Show Shortcode menu item below your table title to get the shortcode …
The plugin also adds a menu item to your WordPress editor. This allows you to easily insert tables into your posts and pages while working on your content.
Place your mouse cursor where you want the table to be inserted then click the TablePress menu icon …
TablePress Menu Icon In WordPress Visual Editor Screen
Note: You can also insert a table when working inside the “Text” area of the WordPress editor …
TablePress Menu Icon In HTML Editor Screen
Clicking on the menu icon opens a window containing a list of all existing tables.
Select the table you want to embed into the post or page and click Insert Shortcode …
Your TablePress shortcode will be inserted into your content …
Your table will display as soon as you publish your post or page …
As stated earlier, one of the great things about TablePress is that you can change things after publishing the table without having to edit your post or page. Change the content in the plugin area, then save the new table settings and refresh your content to view the updated content.
Another great time-saving feature of the TablePress plugin, is that if you plan to keep adding new data to an existing table, just export your current table, then add new information, make changes, etc. You can then re-import your table file with the news changes and your table content will be automatically updated throughout your site.
To export a table, select TablePress > Export a Table in the WP admin menu …
In the “Export Tables” section, select the table(s) you want to export (you can select multiple tables by holding down the “Ctrl” key), then select the Export Format you want(e.g. CSV) and any other export options you’d like to make and click on the Export Table button to download the file to your hard drive …
After making changes and resaving your table file, you can then easily re-import your table into WordPress.
To import a table, select TablePress > Import a Table …
TablePress can import tables from existing data, such as CSV file data, from a spreadsheet application, an HTML file, or its own format. You can also import existing tables from the WP-Table Reloaded plugin
To import a table, select and enter the import source in the “Import Tables” section. You can import multiple tables from ZIP files and choose whether to import a table as a new table or write over an existing table.
For more information about the plugin, including accessing the plugin documentation for extra features, get technical support for the plugin, contact the plugin author, etc., click on the “About Tab” in the plugin admin section, or select TablePress > About TablePress …
As you can see, TablePress is a very useful and feature-rich plugin that is free and will help you easily create and embed tables into your WordPress posts and pages.
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