Being able to display tables on your pages can be very useful. Tables help you sort and present data to visitors in a way that makes 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 giving you the option 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, WordPress plugins let you do almost anything you can imagine, and inserting tables into your content is no exception.
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn how to easily create and insert tables into your WordPress posts and pages with no coding skills required.
Adding Tables In WordPress Pages And Posts
To add tables into your WordPress content with no coding skills required, we’ll use a FREE WordPress plugin called TablePress.
TablePress
A very powerful and time-saving plugin that makes creating, editing and managing tables in your WordPress posts and pages simple and easy is TablePress.
TablePress does not require you to have any knowledge or skills coding HTML, CSS, etc. The plugin provides a simple user interface that allows you to easily edit 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 include the tables into your content using shortcodes and display these inside text widgets.
Tables 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).
How To Use TablePress Plugin For WordPress – Tutorial
To create and add tables to WordPress posts or pages, install and activate the TablePress plugin.
You can download the plugin here:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/tablepress
Or install it directly from within your own Dashboard …
Once the plugin has been installed and activated, you will see a new menu item in your admin menu called TablePress …
Click on TablePress and choose Plugin Options from the list of submenus …
The “Plugin Options” screen controls your plugin styling and display settings …
For example, in the “User Options” section, you can modify where the TablePress menu entry appears on your admin menu.
Normally, the menu item appears around the middle of your menu bar. If you plan to use this plugin a lot, then you can easily position the menu option towards the top of the Dashboard menu by choosing “Top-level (middle)” in the User Options > Admin menu entry dropdown menu …
The TablePress menu entry will now display close to the top of your menu list …
You can also specify other options in the “Plugin Options” section, such as table formatting styles, default language, and so on. If you don’t need to change these settings, simply leave the default options.
With TablePress, you create and edit your tables within the plugin screen. Tables are then placed via a shortcode into your text. Your table will then display when your post or page is published or updated.
The benefit of doing this is that you can easily change the information inside your tables without having to manually edit your pages and 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 …
Enter a 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, 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 the new table has been created, it will be 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 inserting or copying and pasting the shortcode wherever you want your tables to be displayed …
Once you have created a new table, 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. add bold text, 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, print 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” section. You can insert images or links, hide, show, insert, delete and duplicate selected columns and rows, add new columns and rows, combine cells, etc …
You can also enable JavaScript library features in your tables that will allow site visitors to sort, filter and search your table content, set the number of table rows displayed on your posts (and let users 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 in your web browser displaying your table. Certain features like JavaScript options are disabled in preview mode, but will display when your post or page is published …
Remember to click the Save Changes button after you are done editing to update your table information …
To view a list of all your tables TablePress > All Tables …
All the tables you have created are displayed in this section. You can edit, see shortcodes, copy, export, delete and preview tables …
Using The TablePress Shortcode
You embed a table into any content with 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 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 your table to be embedded 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 editor …
TablePress Menu Icon In Text Editor Screen
Clicking on the menu icon brings up a list of all existing tables.
Select the table you want to insert into the content and click Insert Shortcode …
Your TablePress shortcode will be added to your content …
The table and table contents will display as soon as you publish your post or page …
As stated earlier, one of the great things about this plugin is that you can change data after publishing the table without having to open your post or page. Edit the content in the plugin area, then save your new table settings and refresh your post to view the updated information.
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 a table, click on TablePress > Export a Table in your main 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 table file to your hard drive …
After editing and resaving your file, you can then re-import your table into WordPress.
To import a table, go to the menu and choose 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, 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 import multiple tables from a ZIP file and select whether to import a table as a new table or write over an existing table.
For more information about the plugin, including where to access documentation about additional features, or 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 plugin that is free and will help you easily create and add tables into your page content.
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"This is an awesome training series. I have a pretty good understanding of WordPress already, but this is helping me to move somewhere from intermediate to advanced user!" - Kim Lednum