Being able to display tables on your content can be really handy. Tables are great for sorting and presenting data to visitors in a way that makes your information easier to understand.
WordPress offers a great visual editor, but there are some things that the default editor won’t let you do, like being able to create tables without having to learn code.
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 many 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 adding tables to your content is no exception.
In this tutorial you will learn how to easily create and insert tables into your pages and blog posts with no coding skills required.
Adding Tables In Posts And Pages With WordPress
If you want to add tables into your WordPress content and don’t have the skills to create tables using HTML or CSS, the tutorial below will show you how to do this using a FREE WordPress plugin called TablePress.
TablePress – WP Plugin
TablePress is a great plugin that makes creating, editing and managing tables in WordPress a very simple and easy process.
TablePress requires no knowledge or skills coding HTML, CSS, etc. It provides a simple user interface that allows you to easily edit your table data. You can add any kind of data to your 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 display tables using text widgets.
You can also import and export a table from/to CSV files (e.g. from Excel), HTML files, and JSON formats.
TablePress was written and developed by Tobias Bäthge and is licensed as Free Software under GNU General Public License 2 (GPL 2).
How To Use TablePress Plugin For WordPress – Tutorial
To create and add tables to WordPress, install and activate the TablePress plugin.
Download the plugin here:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/tablepress
Or install it from your WordPress Dashboard …
Once you have installed and activated the plugin, a new menu item will be added to your WP admin menu called TablePress …
Click on TablePress and select Plugin Options from the list of submenus …
The “Plugin Options” page affects the plugin’s styling and display settings …
For example, in the “User Options” section, you can modify where the TablePress menu entry appears on your WP admin menu.
By default, the menu entry displays somewhere in the middle of your menu bar. If you plan to use this plugin a lot, then you can easily position the menu option near the top of the Dashboard menu by specifying “Top-level (middle)” in the User Options > Admin menu entry dropdown menu …
The TablePress menu item now shows towards the top section of your menu …
You can also specify other options in the “Plugin Options” screen, like formatting styles for your tables, default language, and so on. If you don’t need to modify this section, just leave the default options.
With TablePress, tables are created and modified inside the plugin screen. Tables are then placed via a shortcode into your WordPress posts and pages. The table will then display or update when saving your post.
The benefit of doing this is that you can easily change the data inside your tables without having to open any of your posts and pages. TablePress then updates all of your table information everywhere where the table has been added to your content.
To add a new table select TablePress > Add New Table …
Type in a name, a description (optional), and the number of rows and columns you want for the 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 your tables at anytime…
Once your new table has been created, it will appear in the “All Tables” list and get assigned a unique Shortcode ID …
The TablePress shortcode allows you to easily insert tables anywhere inside a post or page by simply inserting or copying and pasting the shortcode wherever you want your table to display …
Once a new table has been created, adding content to it is very easy.
In the “Table Content” section, click inside 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, additional options appear that let you configure 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, make the background of consecutive rows alternate in color, highlight rows when a visitor hovers their mouse over the table, show the table name and description above or below the table, and more …
You can also edit your table information after it has been created in the “Table Manipulation” area. You can add links and images, hide, show, insert, delete and clone selected columns and rows, add new rows and columns, combine cells, etc …
You can also enable JavaScript library features in your tables that will allow visitors to sort, filter and search your table content, change the number of table rows showing on your post (and let visitors change 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 allowing you to preview your table. Certain features such as the JavaScript options are disabled in preview mode, but will display once your post or page is published …
Click the Save Changes button when finished to update your new table information …
Once you have created one or more tables, you can view a list of all your tables by clicking on TablePress > All Tables …
All the tables you have created are listed here. You can edit, see shortcodes, copy, delete, export and preview your tables …
How To Use The Shortcode To Embed Tables Into Your Pages And Blog Posts
You embed tables into your pages and posts using the TablePress shortcode.
You can get the shortcode for your tables by clicking on the Show Shortcode menu item under 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 Visual Editor Screen
Note: You can also add a table when working in the “Text” area of the editor …
TablePress Menu Icon In WordPress HTML Editor Screen
Clicking on the menu icon opens a window containing a list of all your existing tables.
Select the table you want to embed into the content and click Insert Shortcode …
Your TablePress shortcode will be added …
Publish the post or page to display your table and table contents …
As stated earlier, one of the great things about this plugin is that you can change information 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 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 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 a table, click on TablePress > Export a Table in the admin menu …
In the “Export Tables” section, choose the table(s) you would like 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 changing and resaving your file, you can then easily re-import the table into WordPress.
To import a table into WordPress from your hard drive, select 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 import source in the “Import Tables” section. You can also import multiple tables from a ZIP file and choose whether to import tables as a new table or write over an existing table.
For more information about TablePress, including where to access the plugin documentation for extra features, get technical support for the plugin, 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 useful and feature-rich free plugin will help you easily create and insert tables into your page content.
***
"Your training is the best in the world! It is simple, yet detailed, direct, understandable, memorable, and complete." Andrea Adams, FinancialJourney.org