Being able to provide visitors with tables on your pages can be very useful. Tables are great for sorting and presenting data to people in a format that can make your information easier to understand.
WordPress offers a feature-rich visual editor, but there are some things that it won’t 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 have knowledge of HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), for most non-technical WordPress users, this is not a feasible option.
Fortunately, WordPress plugins give users almost unlimited expansion capabilities, and creating tables is no exception.
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn how to create and add tables easily into your site’s pages with no coding skills required.
Adding Tables In WordPress Pages And Posts
Follow the tutorial below to learn how to add tables in WordPress using a FREE WordPress plugin called TablePress.
TablePress – WordPress Plugin
A very powerful and time-saving plugin for creating, editing and managing tables in WordPress is TablePress.
TablePress requires no knowledge or skills coding HTML, CSS, etc. It provides a simple user interface that allows you to easily edit your table data. You can add any kind of data to tables.
An additional JavaScript library can be used to include features like pagination, sorting, filtering, and more for your visitors. You can include the tables into your post content using shortcodes and even display tables inside text widgets.
Tables can also be imported and exported from/to CSV files (e.g. from Excel), HTML files, and JSON.
TablePress was created 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, install and activate the TablePress plugin.
You can download this plugin here:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/tablepress
Or install it from within your Dashboard …
After the plugin has been installed and activated, you will see a new menu item in your admin menu called TablePress …
Click on TablePress and select Plugin Options from the submenu list …
The “Plugin Options” screen controls your plugin styling and display settings …
For example, in the “User Options” section, you can specify the position of the TablePress menu entry in your Dashboard menu.
Normally, the menu entry appears somewhere near the middle of your menu bar. If you plan to use this plugin a lot, then you can position the menu option closer to the top of your menu by specifying “Top-level (middle)” in the User Options > Admin menu entry dropdown menu …
The TablePress menu entry now shows close to the top of the admin menu …
You can also play with other plugin options in the “Plugin Options” tab, like formatting styles for your tables, default language, etc. Leave all settings as they are if you don’t need to change things in this section.
With TablePress, tables are created and modified inside the plugin section. Tables are then inserted via a shortcode into your WordPress posts and pages. Your table will then display or update after your post or page is published.
The great thing about doing this is that you can easily update the information inside your tables without having to manually edit your pages and posts. The plugin then updates all of your table information everywhere where the table has been added to your content.
To create a new table select TablePress > Add New Table …
Enter a table name, a description (optional), and the number of rows and columns you would like 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 edit the name, description and size of your table at anytime…
Once your new table is 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 tables to be displayed …
Once a new table has been created, adding content to the table is really easy.
In the “Table Content” section, click inside the cell and type or paste your content. 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” 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, display alternate background colours on consecutive rows, highlight a row 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 creating it in the “Table Manipulation” subsection. You can perform various table edits, like inserting links or 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, such as allowing your site users to sort, filter and search your table content, set the number of table rows showing on your posts (and also allow visitors to specify 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 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 information …
After you have created one or more tables, you can view a list of all your tables by choosing TablePress > All Tables …
A list of all the tables you have created will be displayed in this screen. You can edit, see shortcodes, copy, delete, export and preview tables …
Using The TablePress Shortcode To Insert Tables Into Your Pages And Posts
You insert tables inside any pages and blog posts using the TablePress 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 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 show then click the TablePress menu icon …
TablePress Menu Icon In Visual Editor Screen
Note: You can also insert a table when working in the “Text” area of the 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 embed into the content and click Insert Shortcode …
Your TablePress shortcode will be inserted into your content …
Publish the post or page to display your table and table contents …
As stated earlier, one of the great things about TablePress is that you can edit 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 post to view the updated content.
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 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 WP admin menu …
In the “Export Tables” section, select the table(s) you want 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 table file to your hard drive …
After editing and resaving your file, you can then reimport your table into WordPress.
To import a table into WordPress, go to your admin menu and choose 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 source in the “Import Tables” area. You can import multiple tables from a ZIP file and select whether to import tables as a new table or write over an existing table.
For more information about TablePress, including accessing documentation about extra features, 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 an extremely powerful time saving free plugin will help you easily create and add tables into your WordPress posts and pages.
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