The ability to easily add tables to your website can be very useful. Tables help you sort and present data to visitors in a format that can make your information easier to understand.
WordPress provides users with a great visual editor, but there are some things that it won’t do by default, such as letting you easily create tables.
Although you can add tables manually to your content in WordPress if you know HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), for most non-technical WordPress users, this is not a practical option.
Fortunately, you can do just about anything you can imagine on a WordPress site with plugins, and inserting tables into your content with the click of a mouse is no exception.
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn how to create and insert tables easily into your pages and blog posts without requiring knowledge of HTML or CSS or coding skills.
How To Add Tables Into WordPress Posts And Pages Easily Without Programming Skills
To create and add tables to your WordPress posts or pages with no HTML or CSS knowledge required, we’ll use a FREE WordPress plugin called TablePress.
WordPress Plugin – TablePress
A very powerful and time-saving plugin for creating, editing and managing tables in WordPress is TablePress.
TablePress does not require you to have any knowledge of HTML, CSS, etc. The plugin provides a simple user interface that allows you to easily edit your table data. You can add any type of data to tables.
An additional JavaScript library can be used to add features like pagination, sorting, filtering, and more for your visitors. You can insert tables into your posts and pages using shortcodes and even display tables inside text widgets.
A table can also be imported and exported from/to CSV files (e.g. from Excel), HTML files, and JSON.
TablePress was created by Tobias Bäthge and is licensed as Free Software under GNU General Public License 2 (GPL 2).
Using TablePress Plugin For WordPress – Tutorial
To create and add tables to WordPress posts and pages, first install and activate the TablePress plugin.
You can download this plugin here:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/tablepress
Or install it from within your own Dashboard …
Once you have installed and activated the plugin, a new menu item will be added to your main menu called TablePress …
Click on TablePress and choose Plugin Options from the submenu list …
The “Plugin Options” area controls your plugin styling and display settings …
For example, in the “User Options” section, you can modify the position of the TablePress menu entry in your Dashboard menu.
Normally, the menu entry displays somewhere near the middle of your menu. If you plan to use this plugin often, then you can easily position the menu option close to the top of the menu by selecting “Top-level (middle)” on the User Options > Admin menu entry dropdown menu …
The TablePress menu item now appears at the top area of your admin menu …
You can also specify other plugin options in the “Plugin Options” section, such as table formatting styles, default language, etc. If you don’t need to modify these settings, just leave the default options.
With TablePress, you create and edit your tables inside the plugin screen. Tables are then inserted via a shortcode into your text. The table will then display or update when publishing or updating your content.
The benefit of working directly from the plugin is that you can easily modify the data in your tables without having to touch your posts and pages. The plugin then updates all of your table data inside all posts and pages 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 the new table into the “Add New Table” form in the Add New tab, and click on the Add Table button to create your new table. You can edit the name, description and size of your tables at anytime…
Once your new table is created, it will get added to the “All Tables” list and get assigned a unique Shortcode ID …
The TablePress shortcode lets you easily insert tables anywhere in your content simply by typing or copying and pasting the shortcode wherever you want your tables to display …
Once you have created a new table, adding content to it is very easy.
In the “Table Content” section, click in the cell and 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 …)
Once your new table is created, displays a number of additional options that will let you configure your table.
For example, in the “Table Options” area you can specify the first row of your table to be the table header and the last row of the table to be the table footer, make the background of consecutive rows alternate in colour, highlight a row when visitors hover their mouse over the table, show the table name and description above or below the table, and more …
You can also modify your table content after creating it in the “Table Manipulation” area. You can add images or links, hide, show, insert, delete and duplicate selected rows and columns, add new rows and columns, 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, set the number of table rows showing on your site (and let users specify the number of rows displayed), display table information, etc …
You can see how your table looks anytime, by clicking the Preview button …
A preview window will open on your browser allowing you to preview the table. Certain features such as the JavaScript options are disabled in preview mode, but will display once your table is published …
Click the Save Changes button when finished to update your table data …
To view a list of all your tables TablePress > All Tables …
A list of all the tables you have created will be displayed in this section. You can edit, see the shortcode, copy, export, delete and preview your tables …
Using The TablePress Shortcode
You insert tables inside pages and posts using the TablePress shortcode.
You can get the shortcode for your tables by clicking on the Show Shortcode menu item below the table title to get the shortcode …
The plugin also adds a shortcode menu icon to your WordPress content 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 embedded then click the TablePress menu icon …
TablePress Menu Icon In Visual Editor Screen
Note: You can also add a table when working in the “Text” area of the WordPress editor …
TablePress Menu Icon In WordPress HTML Editor Screen
Clicking on the menu icon displays a list of your tables.
Select the table you want to add to the post or page and click Insert Shortcode …
Your TablePress shortcode will be inserted …
Publish your post or page to display your table …
As stated earlier, one of the great things about TablePress is that you can edit data after publishing the table without having to open your post or page. Just tweak the content in the plugin area, then save the new table settings and refresh your page to view the updated content.
Another great time-saving feature of the TablePress plugin, is that if you plan to keep adding more data to an existing table, you can simply export your current table, then add new information, make changes, etc. You can then re-import your exported file with the news changes and your table content will be automatically updated throughout your site.
To export a table, click on TablePress > Export a Table in the WP admin menu …
In the “Export Tables” section, select the table(s) to export (tip: 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 changing and resaving your file, you can then reimport the table into WordPress.
To import a table into WordPress, select TablePress > Import a Table …
TablePress can import tables from existing data, such as CSV file data, from a spreadsheet application (e.g. Excel), an HTML file resembling a webpage, or its own JSON format.
To import a table, select and enter the source in the “Import Tables” area. You can also import multiple tables from a compressed (ZIP) file and select whether to import tables as a new table or to replace an existing table.
For more information about using TablePress, including accessing documentation about additional features, get technical support, 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 powerful time saving free plugin will help you easily create and add tables into your WordPress posts and pages.
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