The ability to easily add tables to your pages can be very useful. Tables help you sort and present data to people in a way that makes your information easier to understand.
The WordPress visual editor offers many features, but there are some things that it doesn’t do by default, such as letting you 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 most non-technical users, this is simply not a feasible option.
Fortunately, you can do almost anything you can imagine on a WordPress site with plugins, and inserting tables into your content is no exception.
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn how to create and add tables easily into your content without requiring knowledge of HTML or CSS or coding skills.
How To Create And Add Tables In WordPress Content
If you want to add tables into your WordPress content and don’t have the skills or knowledge to create tables using HTML or CSS, the tutorial below will show you how to easily do this using 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 doesn’t require you to have any knowledge or skills coding HTML, CSS, etc. It lets you easily edit your table data. Tables can contain any type 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 insert tables into your pages and blog posts 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.
TablePress was written and developed 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, install and activate the TablePress plugin.
You can download the plugin here:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/tablepress
Or install it directly from your WordPress Dashboard …
Once the plugin has been installed and activated, 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 affects the plugin’s styling and display settings …
For example, in the “User Options” section, you can modify where the TablePress menu entry appears on your WP admin menu.
By default, the menu entry appears around the middle of your menu bar. If you plan to use this plugin a lot, then you can easily position the menu option close to the top of the menu by selecting “Top-level (middle)” in the User Options > Admin menu entry dropdown menu …
The TablePress menu entry now displays closer to the top area of your admin menu …
You can also play with other options in the “Plugin Options” section, like table formatting styles, default language, etc. Leave all default options as they are if you don’t need to change things in this area.
With TablePress, you create edit and format tables inside the plugin section. Tables are then added via a shortcode into your pages and posts. Your tables will then display or update after your post or page is saved.
The great thing about doing this is that you can easily update the data in your tables without having to manually edit your pages and posts. TablePress then updates all of your table data in all instances where the table has been added to your content.
To create a new table select TablePress > Add New Table …
Enter the name, an optional description, and the number of rows and columns you want 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 your tables 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 lets you easily insert tables anywhere inside a post or page simply by inserting or copying and pasting the shortcode wherever you want to display a table …
Once you have created a new table, adding content to it is very easy.
In the “Table Content” section, just click inside the cell and type or paste the content you want to display. You can add text, images and HTML formatting to your content (e.g. add bold text, insert links, etc …)
After your new table has been created, additional options appear that let you configure your table.
For example, in the “Table Options” section 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 a row when visitors hover 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 table operations, such as inserting links and images, hiding, showing, inserting, deleting and duplicating selected columns and rows, adding new columns and rows, combining cells, etc …
You can also enable JavaScript library features in your tables that will allow visitors to sort, filter and search your table content, set the number of table rows showing on your pages (and also allow visitors to change 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 in your browser allowing you to preview the 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 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 …
A list of all your tables will be displayed in this area. You can edit, see the shortcode, copy, export, delete and preview your tables …
How To Use The TablePress Shortcode
You can embed tables into your page content with the TablePress shortcode.
Click on the Show Shortcode menu item below the table title to get the shortcode …
The plugin also adds a menu item to your WordPress 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 inserted 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 editor …
TablePress Menu Icon In WordPress Text Editor Screen
Clicking on the menu icon brings up a list of all tables.
Select the table you want to add to the post or page and click Insert Shortcode …
Your TablePress shortcode will be inserted …
Publish your post or page to display the table …
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 the 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 new 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 an existing table, click on TablePress > Export a Table in your WP admin menu …
In the “Export Tables” section, choose the table(s) you want 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 reimport your table into WordPress.
To import a table into WordPress from your hard drive, 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 format.
To import a table, select and enter the source in the “Import Tables” section. You can also import multiple tables from ZIP files and select whether to import a table as a new table or to replace an existing table.
To learn more about using the plugin, including accessing documentation about extra 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 time saving plugin that is free and will help you easily create and embed tables into your WordPress posts and pages.
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