Being able to easily add tables on your content can be very useful. Tables are great for sorting and presenting data to people in a way that makes your information easier to understand.
The WordPress visual editor offers many great features, but there are some things that it doesn’t let you do by default, such as letting you create tables without having to learn code.
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 users, this is simply not a practical 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 insert tables into your WordPress posts and pages without requiring knowledge of HTML or CSS or coding skills.
How To Create And Add Tables Into Your Content Easily With WordPress
To add tables to your WordPress posts or pages with no coding skills required, we’ll use a FREE plugin called TablePress.
TablePress – WP Plugin
TablePress is a powerful and time-saving WordPress plugin that makes creating, editing and managing tables in your WordPress posts and pages simple and easy.
TablePress doesn’t require you to have any knowledge of HTML, CSS, etc. The plugin provides a simple interface that allows you to easily edit table data. You can add any type of data to your tables.
An additional JavaScript library can be used to include features like sorting, pagination, filtering, and more for your site visitors. You can insert tables into your page content using shortcodes and display these inside text widgets.
You can also import and export a table from/to CSV files (e.g. from Excel), HTML files, and JSON.
The plugin was developed by Tobias Bäthge and is licensed as Free Software under GNU General Public License 2 (GPL 2).
How To Use TablePress – Step-By-Step Tutorial
To create and add tables to WordPress posts or pages, first install and activate the TablePress plugin.
You can download this plugin here:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/tablepress
Or install it directly from within your WordPress Dashboard …
Once 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” area 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.
By default, the menu entry appears around the middle of your menu column. If you plan to use this plugin a lot, then you can position the menu item near the top of your admin menu by choosing “Top-level (middle)” on the User Options > Admin menu entry dropdown menu …
The TablePress menu item now appears at the top of the menu list …
You can also play with other plugin options in the “Plugin Options” tab, like table formatting styles, default language, etc. If you don’t need to modify these settings, simply leave the default options.
With TablePress, you create edit and format tables within the plugin area. Tables are then inserted via a shortcode into your pages. Your table will then display after publishing your pages or posts.
The great thing about doing this is that you can easily change the data in your tables without having to touch your posts and pages. 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 …
Enter the table 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, then 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 the new table is 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 inside a post or page simply by inserting or copying and pasting the shortcode wherever you want your tables to be displayed …
Once you have created a new table, adding content to your table is very 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. bold or italicize words, 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 or 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, display the table name and description above or below the table, and more …
You can also edit your table after creating it in the “Table Manipulation” area. You can perform a number of table operations, such as adding links and images, hiding, showing, inserting, deleting and cloning selected rows and columns, 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, change the number of table rows displayed on your content (and also allow visitors to change the number of rows displayed), display table information, etc …
You can preview your table anytime, by clicking on the Preview button …
A preview window will open allowing you to preview your table. Certain features such as the JavaScript options are disabled in preview mode, but will display when your table is published …
Click the Save Changes button when finished to save your new table data …
To view a list of all your tables TablePress > All Tables …
Your tables are listed here. You can edit, see shortcodes, copy, delete, export and preview your tables …
Using The Shortcode
You embed tables inside any posts and pages using a shortcode.
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 menu item 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 appear then click the TablePress menu icon …
TablePress Menu Icon In Visual Editor Screen
Note: You can also add a table when working inside the “Text” area of the WordPress editor …
TablePress Menu Icon In HTML Editor Screen
Clicking on the menu icon brings up a list of all the available tables you have created.
Select the table you want to add to the post or page and click Insert Shortcode …
Your TablePress shortcode will be inserted …
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 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, 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, select TablePress > Export a Table in your main 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 your table into WordPress.
To import a table, go to your menu and 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 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 import multiple tables from ZIP files and choose whether to import tables as a new table or to replace an existing table.
For more information about the plugin, including accessing the plugin documentation for extra features, or 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 powerful time saving free plugin will help you easily create and add tables into your site content.
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