The ability to easily add tables to your content can be very useful. Tables are great for sorting and presenting data to visitors in a way that makes your information easier to understand.
The WordPress visual editor is great, but there are some things that it doesn’t do by default, like being able to easily create tables.
Although you can create tables manually 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 feasible option.
Fortunately, WordPress plugins let you do almost anything you can imagine, and adding tables to your content is no exception.
In this tutorial you will learn how to easily create and add tables into your posts and pages with no coding skills required.
How To Create And Insert Tables With WordPress
To create and add tables to your WordPress posts or pages without touching code, we’ll use a FREE WordPress 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 requires no knowledge of HTML, CSS, etc. The plugin 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 visitors. You can include the tables into your pages and blog posts using shortcodes and display tables inside text widgets.
A table can also be imported and exported from/to CSV files (e.g. from Excel), HTML files, and JSON formats.
TablePress was written and developed by Tobias Bäthge and is licensed as Free Software under GNU General Public License 2 (GPL 2).
How To Use TablePress – Tutorial
To create and manage tables in WordPress with TablePress, install and activate the TablePress plugin.
You can download this plugin here:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/tablepress
Or install it from your Dashboard …
Once you have installed and activated the plugin, you will see a new menu item in your WordPress admin menu called TablePress …
Click on TablePress and choose Plugin Options from the list of submenus …
The “Plugin Options” section controls your plugin styling and display settings …
For example, in the “User Options” section, you can modify the position of the TablePress menu entry in your admin menu.
By default, the menu item displays somewhere near the middle of your menu column. If you plan to use this plugin a lot, then you can position the menu item close to the top of the menu by choosing “Top-level (middle)” in the User Options > Admin menu entry dropdown menu …
The TablePress menu item now shows closer towards the top of your admin menu …
You can also specify other plugin options in the “Plugin Options” tab, such as formatting styles for your tables, default language, etc. If you don’t need to change these settings, simply leave the default options.
With TablePress, you create edit and format tables inside the plugin area. Tables are then added via a shortcode into your pages and posts. The tables will then display or update when your post or page is published.
The benefit of working directly from the plugin is that you can easily change the data in your tables without having to manually edit your posts and pages. The plugin 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 …
Type in the table name, an optional description, and the number of rows and columns you want for your 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 table at anytime…
Once your new table is created, it will be listed in the “All Tables” list and be assigned a unique Shortcode ID …
The TablePress shortcode lets you easily insert tables anywhere in your content by simply inserting or copying and pasting the shortcode wherever you want to display a table …
Once you have created a new table, adding content to your table is very easy.
In the “Table Content” section, just click inside the cell and either type or paste the content you want to display. You can add text, images and format your content (e.g. add bold text, insert hyperlinks, etc …)
After your new table has been created, additional options appear that 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 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, 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” area. You can insert images or links, hide, show, insert, delete and clone selected columns and rows, 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, change the number of table rows showing on your site (and also allow visitors 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 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 after you are done editing to save your new table data …
After you have created one or more tables, you can view a list of all your tables by selecting TablePress > All Tables …
All the tables you have created are displayed in this section. You can edit, see the shortcode, copy, delete, export and preview your tables …
Using The TablePress Shortcode
You embed tables into any pages and posts using the TablePress 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 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 embedded 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 WordPress HTML Editor Screen
Clicking on the menu icon brings up a list of all your tables.
Select the table you want to embed in your post or page and click Insert Shortcode …
Your TablePress shortcode will be inserted …
Publish your post or page to view the table and table contents …
As stated earlier, one of the great things about TablePress is that you can change the contents of your table after publishing the table without having to edit 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 content.
Another great time-saving feature of this 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 table file with the news changes and your table content will be automatically updated throughout your site.
To export a table, select TablePress > Export a Table in the WP admin menu …
In the “Export Tables” section, select 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 editing and resaving your file, you can then easily re-import your table into WordPress.
To import a table into WordPress, go to your menu and 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 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 also import multiple tables from ZIP files and select whether to import tables as a new table or write over an existing table.
To learn more about using TablePress, including where to access the plugin documentation for additional features, or get technical support for the plugin, 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 powerful time saving plugin that is free and will help you easily create and add tables into your site content.
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