The ability to easily add tables to your website can be very useful. Tables are great for sorting and presenting 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 letting you 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 need done on a WordPress site with plugins, and inserting tables into your content with the click of a mouse is no exception.
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn how to easily create and add tables into your WordPress posts and pages with no coding skills required.
Inserting Tables Into Your Content With WordPress
Follow the step-by-step tutorial below to learn how to easily add tables into your WordPress content using a FREE plugin called TablePress.
WP Plugin – TablePress
A very powerful and time-saving WordPress plugin for creating, editing and managing tables in WordPress is TablePress.
TablePress does not require you to have any knowledge or skills coding HTML, CSS, etc. It provides a simple interface that lets you easily edit table data. 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 site visitors. You can easily insert tables into your posts and pages 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 formats.
The plugin 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 add tables to WordPress posts and pages, install and activate the TablePress plugin.
You can download this plugin here:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/tablepress
Or install it from your WordPress Dashboard …
Once you have installed and activated the plugin, you will see a new menu item has been added to your admin menu called TablePress …
Click on TablePress and choose Plugin Options from the list of submenus …
The “Plugin Options” area affects the plugin’s styling and display settings …
For example, in the “User Options” section, you can specify the position of the TablePress menu entry in your admin menu.
Normally, the menu item displays somewhere near the middle of your menu. If you plan to use this plugin a lot, then you can easily position the menu item close to the top of your menu by selecting “Top-level (middle)” in the User Options > Admin menu entry dropdown menu …
The TablePress menu item now displays closer to the top section of the menu list …
You can also play with other plugin options in the “Plugin Options” screen, such as formatting styles for your tables, default language, etc. If you don’t need to modify these settings, then just leave the default options.
With TablePress, you create edit and format your tables within the plugin screen. Tables are then added via a shortcode into your pages. The table will then display or update after saving and publishing your content.
The advantage of working directly from the plugin is that you can easily change the data in your tables without having to open any of your 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 …
Enter a name, a description (optional), 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 be added to the “All Tables” list and get assigned a unique Shortcode ID …
The TablePress shortcode allows you to 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 links, etc …)
After your new table has been created, you will see a number of additional options that will let you configure 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, display alternate background colors on consecutive rows, 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 modify your table after creating it in the “Table Manipulation” subsection. You can insert images or links, hide, show, insert, delete and clone selected rows and columns, add new rows and columns, 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 showing on your page (and also allow users to specify the number of rows displayed), display table information, etc …
You can preview your table anytime, by clicking the Preview button …
A preview window will open displaying your table. Certain features like JavaScript options are disabled in preview mode, but will display when your post or page is published …
Click the Save Changes button after you are done editing to save your table information …
To view a list of all the tables you have created choose TablePress > All Tables …
A list of all your tables will be displayed in this section. You can edit, see the shortcode, copy, delete, export and preview tables …
Using The Shortcode
You can embed a table into your page content with a shortcode.
Click on the Show Shortcode menu item below your table title to get the shortcode …
The plugin also adds a menu item to your WordPress content 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 be inserted 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 WP editor …
TablePress Menu Icon In WordPress HTML Editor Screen
Clicking on the menu icon opens a window containing a list of all tables.
Select the table you want to embed in your post or page and click Insert Shortcode …
Your TablePress shortcode will be inserted …
The 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 edit the contents of your table after publishing the table without having to open your post or page. Change the content in the plugin area, then save the 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 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 admin menu …
In the “Export Tables” section, select the table(s) 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 making changes and resaving the table file, you can then easily re-import your table into WordPress.
To import a table into WordPress, 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.
To import a table, select and enter the source in the “Import Tables” area. You can 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 using TablePress, including accessing the plugin documentation for 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 useful and feature-rich plugin that is free and will help you easily create and add tables into your WordPress posts and pages.
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