The ability to easily add tables to your website can be really handy. Tables help you sort and present data to people in a format that can make your information easier to understand.
The WordPress visual editor is great, but there are some things that it doesn’t let you 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 most non-technical WordPress users, this is not a realistic option.
Fortunately, you can do almost anything you need done on a WordPress site with plugins, and adding tables is no exception.
In this tutorial you will learn how to easily create and add tables into your content without requiring knowledge of HTML or CSS or coding skills.
How To Create And Add Tables In WordPress
If you want to add tables to your WordPress posts or pages without touching code, then the tutorial below will show you how to add tables into your WordPress posts and pages using a FREE WordPress plugin called TablePress.
TablePress
A powerful and time-saving plugin that makes creating, editing and managing tables in your WordPress posts and pages a very simple and easy process is TablePress.
TablePress requires no knowledge of HTML, CSS, etc. It lets you easily edit table data. Your 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 easily insert tables into your posts and pages using shortcodes and display these using text widgets.
A table can also be imported and exported 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).
How To Use TablePress WP Plugin – Step-By-Step Tutorial
To create and add tables to WordPress posts or pages, install and activate the TablePress plugin.
You can download this plugin here:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/tablepress
Or install it directly from within your WP Dashboard …
After the plugin has been installed and activated, a new menu item will get added to your WordPress admin menu called TablePress …
Click on TablePress and select Plugin Options from the list of submenus …
The “Plugin Options” page 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 Dashboard menu.
Normally, the menu item appears around the middle of your menu column. If you plan to use this plugin a lot, then you can easily position the menu option towards the top of your admin menu by choosing “Top-level (middle)” in the User Options > Admin menu entry dropdown menu …
The TablePress menu entry will now display towards the top of your menu …
You can also specify other settings in the “Plugin Options” tab, like table formatting styles, 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 inside the plugin section. Tables are then placed via a shortcode into your text. Your table will then display or update when your post or page is published.
The benefit of doing this is that you can easily change the data in your tables without having to manually edit your pages. TablePress then updates all of your table information in all locations where the table has been added to your content.
To add a new table select TablePress > Add New Table …
Enter the 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, then click on the Add Table button to create your new table. You can change the name, description and size of any tables you create at anytime…
Once the new table has been created, it will display in the “All Tables” list and get assigned a unique Shortcode ID …
The TablePress shortcode lets you easily insert tables anywhere in your content simply by inserting or copying and pasting the shortcode wherever you want your table to be displayed …
Once you have created a new table, adding content to it is easy.
In the “Table Content” section, click in the cell and either type or paste your content. You can add text, images and HTML formatting to your content (e.g. bold or italicize words, insert hyperlinks, etc …)
Once your new table is created, additional options appear that let you configure your table.
For example, in the “Table Options” section 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 a visitor hovers their mouse over the table, show the table name and description above or below the table, and more …
You can also edit your table information after it has been created in the “Table Manipulation” subsection. You can perform a range of different manipulations on your table, like inserting images or links, hiding, showing, inserting, deleting and duplicating selected rows and columns, adding new rows and columns, combining 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, set the number of table rows showing on your posts (and let visitors specify the number of rows displayed), display table information, etc …
You can see how your table looks anytime, by clicking on the Preview button …
A preview window will open on your web browser displaying your table. Certain features such as the JavaScript options are disabled in preview mode, but will display when your table is published …
Remember to click the Save Changes button after you are done editing to update your new table information …
Once you have created one or more tables, you can view a list of all your tables by choosing 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 …
Using The Shortcode
You can insert a table inside any page content 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 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 the table to appear then click the TablePress menu icon …
TablePress Menu Icon In WordPress Visual Editor Screen
Note: You can also add a table when working in the “Text” area of the editor …
TablePress Menu Icon In WordPress HTML Editor Screen
Clicking on the menu icon opens a window containing a list of all your existing tables.
Select the table you want to embed in your post or page and click Insert Shortcode …
Your TablePress shortcode will be placed in the location you specified …
Your 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 data 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 content.
Another great time-saving feature of the TablePress plugin, is that if you plan to keep adding new data to an existing table, you can simply export your current table, then add new information, 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 an existing table, select TablePress > Export a Table in the WP admin menu …
In the “Export Tables” section, choose 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 the 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 resembling a webpage, or its own JSON format.
To import a table, select and enter the import source in the “Import Tables” section. You can import multiple tables from a compressed (ZIP) file and select whether to import a table as a new table or write over an existing table.
To learn more about using the plugin, including where to access documentation about extra features, get technical 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 site content.
***
"Your training is the best in the world! It is simple, yet detailed, direct, understandable, memorable, and complete." Andrea Adams, FinancialJourney.org