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.
WordPress provides users with a feature-rich visual editor, but there are some things that the default editor doesn’t let you do, such as giving you the option to 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 not a practical option.
Fortunately, WordPress plugins let you do almost anything you can imagine, and creating tables 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 Into Your Content With WordPress
If you want to add tables to your WordPress posts or pages and don’t have the skills and knowledge to create tables using HTML or CSS, then the step-by-step tutorial below will show you how to add tables into your WordPress posts and pages using a FREE plugin called TablePress.
WordPress Plugin – TablePress
A very powerful and time-saving WordPress plugin that makes creating, editing and managing tables in WordPress simple and easy is TablePress.
TablePress doesn’t require you to have any knowledge of HTML, CSS, etc. It lets you easily edit table data. You can add any kind of data to your tables.
An additional JavaScript library can be used to add features like pagination, sorting, filtering, and more for your site visitors. You can easily include the tables into your pages and blog posts using shortcodes and even 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.
This plugin was created by Tobias Bäthge and is licensed as Free Software under GNU General Public License 2 (GPL 2).
Using TablePress – Step-By-Step Tutorial
To create and manage tables in WordPress posts and pages, install and activate the TablePress plugin.
Download this plugin here:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/tablepress
Or install it directly from within your Dashboard …
After installing and activating the plugin, a new menu item will appear on your admin menu called TablePress …
Click on TablePress and choose Plugin Options from the submenu list …
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 where the TablePress menu entry appears on your admin menu.
Normally, the menu entry displays somewhere around the middle of your menu bar. If you plan to use this plugin a lot, then you can easily position the menu option closer to the top of your admin menu by choosing “Top-level (middle)” in the User Options > Admin menu entry dropdown menu …
The TablePress menu item will now appear near the top area of your admin menu …
You can also specify other options in the “Plugin Options” section, such as table formatting styles, default language, etc. If you don’t need to modify this section, just leave the default options.
With TablePress, tables are created and modified within the plugin screen. Tables are then added via a shortcode into your pages. The table will then display after saving your pages or posts.
The advantage of doing this is that you can easily modify the information in your tables without having to open any of your pages. The plugin then updates all of your table information in all locations where the table has been added to your content.
To create a new table select TablePress > Add New Table …
Enter a 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 your tables 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 lets you easily insert tables anywhere inside a post or page simply by inserting or copying and pasting the shortcode wherever you want your tables to display …
Once a new table has been created, adding content to your table 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. add bold text, insert links, 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 specify the first row of your table to be the table header or the last row of the table to be the table footer, display alternate background colors on consecutive rows, highlight rows when visitors hover their mouse over the table, display the table name and description above or below the table, and more …
You can also edit your table content after creating it in the “Table Manipulation” subsection. You can perform a range of different table edits, like inserting links or images, hiding, showing, inserting, deleting and cloning selected columns and rows, adding new columns and rows, combining cells, etc …
You can also enable JavaScript library features in your tables, such as allowing your visitors to sort, filter and search your table content, set the number of table rows displayed on your post (and also allow users to change 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 allowing you to preview the table. Certain features like JavaScript options are disabled in preview mode, but will display once your post or page is published …
Remember to click the Save Changes button after you are done editing to update your table information …
To view a list of all your tables TablePress > All Tables …
All your tables are displayed in this section. You can edit, see the shortcode, copy, delete, export and preview tables …
How To Use The TablePress Shortcode
You can insert tables into your posts and pages with the TablePress 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 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 the table to be inserted then click the TablePress menu icon …
TablePress Menu Icon In 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 displays a list of all the available tables you have created.
Select the table you want to embed in your content 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 information after publishing the table without having to edit 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 this plugin, is that if you plan to keep adding data to an existing table, just export your current table, then add new information, 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 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 (e.g. Excel), 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 import multiple tables from compressed (ZIP) files and select whether to import a table as a new table or replace an existing table.
For more information about the plugin, including accessing the plugin documentation for extra features, or 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 an extremely powerful time saving plugin that is free and will help you easily create and embed tables into your page content.
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