The ability to easily add tables to your content can be really handy. 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 won’t do by default, 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 most non-technical users, this is not a realistic option.
Fortunately, you can do just about anything you can imagine 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 pages and blog posts with no coding skills required.
Inserting Tables Into Posts And Pages In WordPress
Follow the tutorial below to learn how to easily add tables in WordPress using a FREE plugin called TablePress.
TablePress
A very powerful and time-saving WordPress plugin that makes creating, editing and managing tables in your WordPress posts and pages simple and easy 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 your site visitors. You can easily insert tables into your page content using shortcodes and even display these inside text widgets.
Tables can also be imported and exported from/to CSV files (e.g. from Excel), HTML files, and JSON formats.
TablePress was created by Tobias Bäthge and is licensed as Free Software under GNU General Public License 2 (GPL 2).
Using TablePress WordPress Plugin – Tutorial
To create and manage tables in WordPress posts or pages, first install and activate the TablePress plugin.
You can download the plugin here:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/tablepress
Or install it from your own WP Dashboard …
After the plugin has been installed and activated, you will see a new menu item has been added to your Dashboard menu called TablePress …
Click on TablePress and select Plugin Options from the list of submenus …
The “Plugin Options” area affects the plugin’s styling and display settings …
For example, in the “User Options” section, you can change the position of the TablePress menu entry in your Dashboard menu.
By default, the menu item displays somewhere around the middle of your menu column. If you plan to use this plugin a lot, then you can position the menu option close to the top of the admin menu by choosing “Top-level (middle)” on the User Options > Admin menu entry dropdown menu …
The TablePress menu item will now appear at the top section of your admin menu …
You can also play with other plugin options in the “Plugin Options” section, like table formatting styles, default language, and so on. Leave all settings as they are if you don’t need to change things in this section.
With TablePress, you create edit and format your tables within the plugin section. Tables are then added via a shortcode into your pages. The tables will then display or update when publishing your page.
The benefit of working directly from the plugin is that you can easily change the information inside your tables without having to manually edit your pages and posts. The plugin then updates all of your table data inside all posts and pages where the table has been added to your content.
To create a new table select TablePress > Add New Table …
Type in the 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, and click on the Add Table button to create your new table. You can edit the name, description and size of any table you create at anytime…
Once the new table has been created, it will get added to the “All Tables” list and be assigned a unique Shortcode ID …
The TablePress shortcode allows you to easily add tables anywhere inside a post or page by simply typing or copying and pasting the shortcode wherever you want to display a table …
Once a new table has been created, adding content to it is really easy.
In the “Table Content” section, just click in the cell and either type or paste the content you want to display. You can add text, images and HTML formatting to your content (e.g. bold or italicize words, insert links, etc …)
Once your new table is created, you will see a number of additional options that will allow you to 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 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 edit your table after it has been created in the “Table Manipulation” area. You can add links or images, hide, show, insert, delete and clone 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 displayed on your pages (and let users specify 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 like JavaScript options are disabled in preview mode, but will display when your table is published …
Click the Save Changes button after you are done editing to update your table data …
To view a list of all the tables you have created select TablePress > All Tables …
A list of all your tables will be displayed in this screen. You can edit, see the shortcode, copy, export, delete and preview your tables …
Using The TablePress Shortcode
You can insert tables inside any pages and blog posts with a shortcode.
Get the shortcode for your tables by clicking on the Show Shortcode menu item below the table title to get the shortcode …
The plugin also adds a shortcode menu icon to your WordPress 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 inserted then click the TablePress menu icon …
TablePress Menu Icon In WordPress 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 opens a window containing a list of your tables.
Select the table you want to insert into the content and click Insert Shortcode …
Your TablePress shortcode will be added to your content …
The table 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 edit the contents of your table after publishing the table without having to edit your post or page. Just tweak the content in the plugin area, then save the 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 more data to an existing table, just 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 a table, click on TablePress > Export a Table in your 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 reimport the table into WordPress.
To import a table, go to your menu and choose 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” 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.
For more information about using TablePress, including accessing documentation about extra features, or get plugin 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 time saving free plugin will help you easily create and add tables into your site content.
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