Being able to easily add tables on your content can be very useful. Tables are great for sorting and presenting data to visitors 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 it doesn’t do by default, such as letting you 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, you can do just about anything you can imagine on a WordPress site with plugins, and inserting tables into your content with the click of a mouse is no exception.
In this tutorial you will learn how to create and add tables easily into your pages and blog posts with no coding skills required.
Creating And Inserting Tables Into Your Content Easily In WordPress
Follow the tutorial below to learn how to create and add tables into your WordPress posts and pages using a FREE WordPress plugin called TablePress.
TablePress – WP Plugin
A very powerful and time-saving plugin for creating, editing and managing tables in WordPress is TablePress.
TablePress requires no knowledge of HTML, CSS, etc. It provides a simple interface that allows you to easily edit table data. Tables can contain any kind of data, even formulas.
An additional JavaScript library can be used to add features like pagination, sorting, filtering, and more for site users. You can include the tables into your pages and blog posts using shortcodes and display these using text widgets.
You can also import and export tables 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 WP Plugin – Tutorial
To create and add tables to WordPress, first install and activate the TablePress plugin.
You can download this plugin here:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/tablepress
Or install it from your WP Dashboard …
Once you have installed and activated the plugin, a new menu item will display on your WP admin menu called TablePress …
Click on TablePress and choose Plugin Options from the list of submenus …
The “Plugin Options” screen 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 WP admin menu.
By default, the menu item displays around the middle of your menu bar. If you plan to use this plugin a lot, then you can easily position the menu option closer to the top of your menu by choosing “Top-level (middle)” in the User Options > Admin menu entry dropdown menu …
The TablePress menu item now displays at the top of your menu …
You can also play with other options in the “Plugin Options” screen, like table formatting styles, default language, and so on. Leave the default options as they are if you don’t need to change things in this area.
With TablePress, you create and edit tables inside the plugin screen. Tables are then placed via a shortcode into your pages. Your tables will then display after publishing your content.
The benefit of working directly from the plugin is that you can easily change the data in your tables without having to touch your posts. TablePress then updates all of your table information 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, a description (optional), and the number of rows and columns you would like for the 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 table you create at anytime…
Once your new table has been created, it will get added to the “All Tables” list and get assigned a unique Shortcode ID …
The TablePress shortcode allows you to easily add tables anywhere in your content by simply typing or copying and pasting the shortcode wherever you want your tables to be displayed …
Once you have created a new table, adding content to it is really easy.
In the “Table Content” section, just 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 hyperlinks, etc …)
After your new table has been created, displays additional options for configuring your table.
For example, in the “Table Options” area you can specify 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, show 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” area. You can perform a number of manipulations on your table, like inserting links and images, hiding, showing, inserting, deleting and cloning selected rows and columns, adding new rows and columns, combining cells, etc …
You can also enable JavaScript library features in your tables, such as allowing site visitors to sort, filter and search your table content, change the number of table rows showing on your site (and let users change the number of rows displayed), display table information, etc …
You can see how your table looks anytime, by clicking the Preview button …
A preview window will open allowing you to preview 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 update your table information …
Once you have created one or more tables, you can view a list of all your tables by clicking on TablePress > All Tables …
All the tables you have created are displayed in a list. You can edit, see shortcodes, copy, export, delete and preview tables …
How To Use The TablePress Shortcode
You embed a table into any page content with the TablePress shortcode.
You can get the shortcode for your tables by clicking 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 in the “Text” area of the editor …
TablePress Menu Icon In WordPress HTML Editor Screen
Clicking on the menu icon brings up a list of your available tables.
Select the table you want to embed into your post or page and click Insert Shortcode …
Your TablePress shortcode will be inserted into your content …
The table contents will display as soon as you publish your post or page …
As stated earlier, one of the great things about TablePress is that you can change things after publishing the table without having to edit your post or page. Change the content in the plugin area, then save your new table settings and refresh your post to view the updated information.
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, click on TablePress > Export a Table in the main menu …
In the “Export Tables” section, choose 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 editing and resaving your file, you can then easily re-import your table into WordPress.
To import a table, go to the admin 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, or its own 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” section. You can also import multiple tables from a ZIP file and choose whether to import a table as a new table or to replace an existing table.
For more information about the plugin, including accessing documentation about additional features, 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 an extremely powerful and feature-rich free plugin will help you easily create and add 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