The ability to easily add tables to your pages can be very useful. Tables help you sort and present data to visitors in a format that can make your information easier to understand.
WordPress offers a great visual editor, but there are some things that the default editor doesn’t do, such as giving you the option to 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 WordPress users, this is simply not a practical option.
Fortunately, you can do almost anything you need done on a WordPress site with plugins, and creating tables is no exception.
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn how to create and insert tables easily into your posts and pages with no coding skills required.
How To Add Tables In Pages And Posts With WordPress
To add tables to your WordPress posts or pages without touching code, we’ll use a FREE WordPress plugin called TablePress.
TablePress – WordPress Plugin
A powerful and time-saving 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 table data. You can add any type of data, even formulas to tables.
An additional JavaScript library can be used to add features like sorting, pagination, filtering, and more for your site visitors. You can easily insert tables into your posts and pages using shortcodes and even display tables using 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 written and developed by Tobias Bäthge and is licensed as Free Software under GNU General Public License 2 (GPL 2).
Using TablePress – Tutorial
To create and add tables to WordPress posts or pages, install and activate the TablePress plugin.
Download this plugin here:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/tablepress
Or install it directly from within your own WP Dashboard …
Once you have installed and activated the plugin, you will see a new menu item added to your main menu called TablePress …
Click on TablePress and select Plugin Options from the list of submenus …
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 WP admin menu.
Normally, the menu entry appears somewhere in the middle of your menu column. If you plan to use this plugin often, then you can easily position the menu item towards the top of the Dashboard menu by choosing “Top-level (middle)” on the User Options > Admin menu entry dropdown menu …
The TablePress menu entry now displays closer to the top section of your admin menu …
You can also specify other plugin options in the “Plugin Options” section, such as formatting styles for your tables, default language, and so on. Leave these options as they are if you don’t need to change things in this area.
With TablePress, tables are created and edited inside the plugin area. Tables are then inserted via a shortcode into your WordPress posts and pages. The tables will then display or update after republishing or saving your post.
The advantage of doing this is that you can easily change the data in your tables without having to manually edit your pages and posts. The plugin then updates all of your table data in all locations where the table has been added to your content.
To create a new table select TablePress > Add New Table …
Type in 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 change the name, description and size of your tables at anytime…
Once your 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 insert tables anywhere in your content by simply typing or copying and pasting the shortcode wherever you want to display your table …
Once you have created a new table, adding content to it is 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 links, etc …)
After your new table has been created, displays 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 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 information after it has been created in the “Table Manipulation” subsection. You can add links and images, hide, show, insert, delete and duplicate selected rows and columns, add new columns and rows, combine cells, etc …
You can also enable JavaScript library features in your tables that will allow your site users to sort, filter and search your table content, change the number of table rows showing on your page (and let visitors 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 on your screen allowing you to preview the table. Certain features like JavaScript options are disabled in preview mode, but will display when your table is published …
Remember to click the Save Changes button when finished to update your table data …
To view a list of all the tables you have created go to TablePress > All Tables …
Your tables are listed here. You can edit, see the shortcode, copy, delete, export and preview tables …
How To Use The TablePress Shortcode
You can embed tables inside any posts and pages with a shortcode.
Get the shortcode for your tables by clicking on the Show Shortcode menu item under your 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 mouse cursor where you want the table to be embedded then click the TablePress menu icon …
TablePress Menu Icon In WordPress Visual Editor Screen
Note: You can also add a table when working inside the “Text” area of the WordPress editor …
TablePress Menu Icon In Text Editor Screen
Clicking on the menu icon displays a list of all the available tables you have created.
Select the table you want to embed into your content and click Insert Shortcode …
Your TablePress shortcode will be inserted …
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 information after publishing the table without having to open your post or page. Tweak the content in the plugin area, then save your new table settings and refresh your content 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 data, 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) you would like 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 file to your hard drive …
After editing and resaving your file, you can then 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 (e.g. Excel), an HTML file resembling a webpage, 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 import source in the “Import Tables” area. You can also import multiple tables from a compressed (ZIP) file and choose whether to import tables as a new table or replace an existing table.
To learn more about the plugin, including accessing the plugin documentation for additional features, or 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 a very useful and feature-rich free plugin will help you easily create and embed tables into your site content.
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