Being able to easily add tables on your website can be really handy. Tables help you sort and present data to people in a way that makes your information easier to understand.
WordPress provides users with a great visual editor, but there are some things that the default editor won’t let you do, such as giving you the option 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 many non-technical WordPress users, this is simply not a feasible option.
Fortunately, you can do almost anything you can imagine on a WordPress site with plugins, and adding tables to your content is no exception.
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn how to easily create and add tables into your site’s pages with no coding skills required.
Creating And Inserting Tables With WordPress
To add tables into your WordPress content with no HTML or CSS knowledge required, we’ll use a FREE plugin called TablePress.
WP Plugin – TablePress
A very powerful and time-saving WordPress plugin that makes creating, editing and managing tables in WordPress simple and easy is TablePress.
TablePress doesn’t require you to have any knowledge of HTML, CSS, etc. It lets you easily edit your table data. Your tables can contain any kind of data, even formulas.
An additional JavaScript library can be used to include features like pagination, sorting, filtering, and more for your visitors. You can insert 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 formats.
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 – Step-By-Step Tutorial
To create and manage tables in WordPress posts and pages, install and activate the TablePress plugin.
You can download the plugin here:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/tablepress
Or install it from within your own Dashboard …
After installing and activating the plugin, you will see a new menu item displayed in your WP admin menu called TablePress …
Click on TablePress and select Plugin Options from the list of submenus …
The “Plugin Options” section affects the plugin’s behavior in different areas of your site …
For example, in the “User Options” section, you can change where the TablePress menu entry appears on your Dashboard menu.
By default, the menu entry displays somewhere in the middle of your menu. If you plan to use this plugin often, then you can easily position the menu item towards the top of your admin menu by selecting “Top-level (middle)” on the User Options > Admin menu entry dropdown menu …
The TablePress menu item will now appear near the top section of the menu list …
You can also play with other settings in the “Plugin Options” screen, such as table formatting styles, default language, and so on. Leave the settings as they are if you don’t need to change things in this area.
With TablePress, you create and edit tables inside the plugin section. Tables are then added via a shortcode into your text. The table will then display after your post or page is saved.
The advantage 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 information in all locations where the table has been added to your content.
To create a new table select TablePress > Add New Table …
Enter 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, and 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 is created, it will be added to the “All Tables” list and get assigned a unique Shortcode ID …
The TablePress shortcode allows you to easily insert tables anywhere in your content by simply typing or copying and pasting the shortcode wherever you want to display your table …
Once a new table has been created, adding content to it is very easy.
In the “Table Content” section, 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 hyperlinks, etc …)
Once your new table is created, displays additional options for configuring your table.
For example, in the “Table Options” area 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 visitors hover their mouse over the table, print the table name and description above or below the table, and more …
You can also modify your table information after creating it in the “Table Manipulation” section. You can insert 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 that will allow visitors to sort, filter and search your table content, set the number of table rows displayed on your post (and also allow visitors to 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 on your browser displaying the table. Certain features such as the JavaScript options are disabled in preview mode, but will display when your table is published …
Remember to 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 your tables will be displayed in this section. You can edit, see the shortcode, copy, export, delete and preview tables …
How To Use The TablePress Shortcode
You can insert tables inside any pages and posts with a shortcode.
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 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 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 insert a table when working in the “Text” area of the editor …
TablePress Menu Icon In WordPress Text Editor Screen
Clicking on the menu icon opens a window containing a list of your available tables.
Select the table you want to insert into the post or page and click Insert Shortcode …
Your TablePress shortcode will be placed in the location you specified …
Publish the post or page to view your table and table contents …
As stated earlier, one of the great things about TablePress is that you can change things 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 post to view the updated content.
Another great time-saving feature of the TablePress plugin, is that if you plan to keep adding data to an existing table, you can simply export your current table, then add new data, 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 an existing table, select TablePress > Export a Table in the admin menu …
In the “Export Tables” section, choose the table(s) 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 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 (e.g. Excel), an HTML file, or its own format.
To import a table, select and enter the source in the “Import Tables” section. You can import multiple tables from a ZIP file and select whether to import tables as a new table or to replace an existing table.
For more information about the plugin, including where to access the plugin documentation for extra features, or 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 useful and feature-rich free plugin will help you easily create and insert 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