Being able to provide visitors with tables on your pages can be really handy. Tables are great for sorting and presenting data to visitors in a way that makes your information easier to understand.
The WordPress visual editor offers many features, but there are some things that it doesn’t let you do by default, such as letting you 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 simply not a feasible 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 create and add tables easily into your pages and blog posts without requiring knowledge of HTML or CSS or coding skills.
Creating And Adding Tables To WordPress Content
If you want to add tables into your WordPress content without touching code, the step-by-step tutorial below will show you how to do this using a FREE plugin called TablePress.
TablePress
TablePress is a powerful and time-saving plugin for creating, editing and managing tables in WordPress.
TablePress requires no knowledge of HTML, CSS, etc. It lets you easily edit your table data. Your tables can contain any type of data, even formulas.
An additional JavaScript library can be used to include features like sorting, pagination, filtering, and more for your site visitors. You can easily include the tables into your pages and blog posts using shortcodes and even display these inside text widgets.
You can also import and export a table 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).
Using TablePress – Step-By-Step Tutorial
To create and manage tables in WordPress using TablePress, install and activate the TablePress plugin.
You can download the plugin here:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/tablepress
Or install it from within your own WordPress Dashboard …
Once you have installed and activated the plugin, you will see a new menu item on your WordPress admin menu called TablePress …
Click on TablePress and choose Plugin Options from the list of submenus …
The “Plugin Options” area affects the plugin’s behavior in different areas of your site …
For example, in the “User Options” section, you can specify the position of the TablePress menu entry in your WP admin menu.
Normally, the menu item displays somewhere around the middle of your menu. If you plan to use this plugin often, then you can easily position the menu option towards the top of your menu by choosing “Top-level (middle)” on the User Options > Admin menu entry dropdown menu …
The TablePress menu item will now show close to the top section of the menu list …
You can also specify other settings in the “Plugin Options” screen, such as table formatting styles, default language, and so on. If you don’t need to modify this section, simply leave the default options.
With TablePress, tables are created and formatted inside the plugin screen. Tables are then placed via a shortcode into your text. Your table will then display when publishing or updating your page.
The benefit of working directly from the plugin is that you can easily change the information inside your tables without having to manually edit your pages. The plugin then updates all of your table data in all instances where the table has been added to your content.
To create 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 any tables you create at anytime…
Once the new table is created, it will appear in the “All Tables” list and get assigned a unique Shortcode ID …
The TablePress shortcode lets you easily add tables anywhere inside a post or page simply by 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 inside the cell and type or paste your content. You can add text, images and format your content (e.g. add bold text, insert hyperlinks, etc …)
Once your new table is created, the plugin also displays a number of additional options that will allow you to configure 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 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 content after it has been created in the “Table Manipulation” section. You can perform various table manipulations, like adding links or images, hiding, showing, inserting, deleting and duplicating selected rows and columns, adding new columns and rows, combining cells, etc …
You can also enable JavaScript library features in your tables, such as allowing your visitors to sort, filter and search your table content, change the number of table rows showing on your content (and also allow visitors to 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 displaying the table. Certain features such as the JavaScript options are disabled in preview mode, but will display when your post or page is published …
Click the Save Changes button when finished to save your table data …
To view a list of all your tables TablePress > All Tables …
All the tables you have created are listed here. You can edit, see the shortcode, copy, export, delete and preview your tables …
Using The TablePress Shortcode
You insert a table into posts and pages with a shortcode.
Click on the Show Shortcode menu item under the 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 cursor where you want your table to appear then click the TablePress menu icon …
TablePress Menu Icon In Visual Editor Screen
Note: You can also insert a table when working inside the “Text” area of the editor …
TablePress Menu Icon In HTML Editor Screen
Clicking on the menu icon brings up a list of all the available tables you have created.
Select the table you want to add to the post or page and click Insert Shortcode …
Your TablePress shortcode will be added to your content …
Your 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 the contents of your table 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 post 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, just export your current table, then add new items, 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 a table, click on TablePress > Export a Table in the WP admin menu …
In the “Export Tables” section, select 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 editing and resaving your 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, an HTML file, or its own format.
To import a table, select and enter the import source in the “Import Tables” section. You can also import multiple tables from compressed (ZIP) files and choose whether to import tables as a new table or replace an existing table.
For more information about the plugin, including accessing documentation about extra 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 an extremely 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