Being able to display tables on your website can be very useful. Tables help you sort and present data to people in a format that can make your information easier to understand.
WordPress offers a great visual editor, 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 realistic option.
Fortunately, WordPress plugins let you do almost anything you can imagine, and adding tables to your content with the click of a mouse is no exception.
In this tutorial you will learn how to create and add tables easily into your site’s pages without requiring knowledge of HTML or CSS or coding skills.
Adding Tables In WordPress
To add tables to your WordPress posts or pages with no HTML or CSS knowledge required, we’ll use a FREE plugin called TablePress.
TablePress
A very powerful and time-saving WordPress plugin for creating, editing and managing tables in WordPress is TablePress.
TablePress requires no knowledge of HTML, CSS, etc. It provides a simple interface that lets you easily edit table data. You can add any kind of data to tables.
An additional JavaScript library can be used to include features like sorting, pagination, filtering, and more for visitors. You can insert tables into your pages and blog posts using shortcodes and even display these inside text widgets.
A table can also be imported and exported from/to CSV files (e.g. from Excel), HTML files, and JSON.
This plugin was developed by Tobias Bäthge and is licensed as Free Software under GNU General Public License 2 (GPL 2).
How To Use TablePress WordPress Plugin – Step-By-Step Tutorial
To create and add tables to WordPress posts or pages, install and activate the TablePress plugin.
Download the plugin here:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/tablepress
Or install it directly from your own WordPress Dashboard …
Once you have installed and activated the plugin, you will see a new menu item displayed in your admin menu called TablePress …
Click on TablePress and select 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 change where the TablePress menu entry appears on your admin menu.
By default, the menu entry displays somewhere around the middle of your menu. If you plan to use this plugin a lot, then you can position the menu option towards the top of your menu by selecting “Top-level (middle)” in the User Options > Admin menu entry dropdown menu …
The TablePress menu entry will now show closer to the top of your menu list …
You can also specify other settings in the “Plugin Options” screen, like table formatting styles, default language, and so on. Leave the default options as they are if you don’t need to change things in this area.
With TablePress, tables are created and formatted within the plugin section. Tables are then added via a shortcode into your WordPress posts and pages. The tables will then display after your content is saved.
The benefit of working directly from the plugin is that you can easily change the information inside your tables without having to open any of your posts. TablePress then updates all of your table information 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 name, a description (optional), and the number of rows and columns you want 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 edit the name, description and size of any table you create at anytime…
Once your new table is created, it will display in the “All Tables” list and get assigned a unique Shortcode ID …
The TablePress shortcode allows you to easily add tables anywhere in your content by simply 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 really 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, the plugin will display additional options for configuring your table.
For example, in the “Table Options” section you can specify 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 a visitor hovers their mouse over the table, print 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” subsection. You can perform a number of edits on your table, like inserting links or images, hiding, showing, inserting, deleting and cloning selected rows and columns, adding new rows and columns, combining cells, etc …
You can also enable JavaScript library features in your tables that will allow your visitors to sort, filter and search your table content, set the number of table rows displayed on your site (and let visitors specify the number of rows displayed), display table information, etc …
You can see how your table looks anytime, by clicking on the Preview button …
A preview window will open allowing you to preview the table. Certain features like JavaScript options are disabled in preview mode, but will display when your table is published …
Click the Save Changes button when finished to update your table data …
Once you have created one or more tables, you can view a list of all your tables by clicking on TablePress > All Tables …
A list of all your tables will be displayed in this area. You can edit, see the shortcode, copy, export, delete and preview your tables …
Using The Shortcode
You can insert tables inside content using the TablePress 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 shortcode menu icon 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 your table to show then click the TablePress menu icon …
TablePress Menu Icon In WordPress Visual Editor Screen
Note: You can also add a table when working inside the “Text” area of the WordPress editor …
TablePress Menu Icon In Text Editor Screen
Clicking on the menu icon displays a list of all your available tables.
Select the table you want to embed into your content and click Insert Shortcode …
Your TablePress shortcode will be inserted …
Publish the post or page to display the table contents …
As stated earlier, one of the great things about this plugin is that you can edit data after publishing the table without having to edit your post or page. Tweak the content in the plugin area, then save your new table settings and refresh your content to view the updated content.
Another great time-saving feature of this plugin, is that if you plan to keep adding data to an existing table, you can simply export your current table, then add new items, 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 an existing table, click on TablePress > Export a Table in your admin menu …
In the “Export Tables” section, choose the table(s) you would like 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 table file to your hard drive …
After editing and resaving your file, you can then easily re-import the table into WordPress.
To import a table into WordPress from your hard drive, go to the Dashboard menu and choose TablePress > Import a Table …
TablePress can import tables from existing data, such as CSV file data, from a spreadsheet application, an HTML file resembling a webpage, or its own JSON format. You can also import existing tables from the WP-Table Reloaded plugin
To import a table, select and enter the source in the “Import Tables” area. You can also import multiple tables from compressed (ZIP) files and select whether to import a table as a new table or to replace an existing table.
To learn more about TablePress, including accessing documentation about extra features, or get plugin support, contact the plugin developer, etc., click on the “About Tab” in the plugin admin section, or select TablePress > About TablePress …
As you can see, TablePress is quite a powerful time saving plugin that is free and will help you easily create and embed tables into your page content.
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