The ability to easily add tables to your pages can be really handy. Tables are great for sorting and presenting data to people in a format that can make your information easier to understand.
The WordPress visual editor offers many great features, but there are some things that the default editor doesn’t let you do, 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 many non-technical users, this is not a practical option.
Fortunately, WordPress plugins give users almost unlimited expansion capabilities, and adding tables to your content is no exception.
In this tutorial you will learn how to create and insert tables easily into your WordPress posts and pages with no coding skills required.
How To Insert Tables Into Your Content Easily In WordPress
If you want to add tables into your WordPress content without touching code, then the tutorial below will show you how to do this using a FREE WordPress plugin called TablePress.
WP Plugin – TablePress
A powerful and time-saving WordPress plugin for creating, editing and managing tables in WordPress is TablePress.
TablePress requires no knowledge or skills coding HTML, CSS, etc. The plugin provides a simple interface that allows you to easily edit table data. You can add any type of data, even formulas to your tables.
An additional JavaScript library can be used to add features like pagination, sorting, filtering, and more for your site visitors. You can include the tables into your post 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.
The 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 using TablePress, first install and activate the TablePress plugin.
You can download this plugin here:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/tablepress
Or install it from your Dashboard …
After the plugin has been installed and activated, a new menu item will display on your WP admin menu called TablePress …
Click on TablePress and select Plugin Options from the submenu list …
The “Plugin Options” screen 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 Dashboard menu.
By default, the menu entry displays somewhere around the middle of your menu. If you plan to use this plugin often, then you can position the menu option closer to the top of the admin menu by selecting “Top-level (middle)” on the User Options > Admin menu entry dropdown menu …
The TablePress menu entry will now display towards the top area of your admin menu …
You can also play with other plugin options in the “Plugin Options” tab, like formatting styles for your tables, default language, and so on. If you don’t need to modify this section, then just leave the options as the default.
With TablePress, tables are created and formatted within the plugin section. Tables are then inserted via a shortcode into your text. Your tables will then display when your post or page is published.
The benefit of doing this is that you can easily update the data in your tables without having to open any of your pages and posts. The plugin then updates all of your table information inside all posts and pages where the table has been added to your content.
To add a new table select TablePress > Add New Table …
Enter the table name, an optional description, 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 edit the name, description and size of your tables at anytime…
Once the new table has been created, it will be listed in 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 your tables to display …
Once a new table has been created, adding content to it is easy.
In the “Table Content” section, click inside the cell and either type or paste your content. 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, you will see 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 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 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 creating it in the “Table Manipulation” section. You can perform a number of table edits, like inserting links and images, hiding, showing, inserting, deleting and cloning selected rows and columns, adding new columns and rows, combining 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 showing on your post (and let visitors specify the number of rows displayed), display table information, etc …
You can preview your table anytime, by clicking on the Preview button …
A preview window will open in your web browser allowing you to preview the table. Certain features like JavaScript options are disabled in preview mode, but will display once your post or page is published …
Remember to click the Save Changes button when finished to save your table information …
To view a list of all your tables TablePress > All Tables …
All your tables are listed here. You can edit, see the shortcode, copy, export, delete and preview your tables …
Using The Shortcode To Insert Tables Into Your Page Content
You embed tables into posts and pages using a shortcode.
Click on the Show Shortcode menu item under 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 appear then click the TablePress menu icon …
TablePress Menu Icon In Visual Editor Screen
Note: You can also add a table when working inside the “Text” area of the editor …
TablePress Menu Icon In HTML Editor Screen
Clicking on the menu icon opens a window containing a list of your tables.
Select the table you want to embed in the content and click Insert Shortcode …
Your TablePress shortcode will be inserted into your content …
Publish the post or page to display the table and table contents …
As stated earlier, one of the great things about TablePress is that you can change data after publishing the table without having to open your post or page. 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 data to an existing table, just 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, select TablePress > Export a Table in your admin menu …
In the “Export Tables” section, select the table(s) you want 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 the table file, you can then easily reimport the table into WordPress.
To import a table, go to your 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 resembling a webpage, or its own JSON format.
To import a table, select and enter the import source in the “Import Tables” section. You can import multiple tables from a compressed (ZIP) file and choose whether to import a table as a new table or write over an existing table.
To learn more about TablePress, including accessing documentation about additional features, 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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