Being able to provide visitors with tables on your pages can be very useful. 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 the default editor doesn’t do, like being able to easily create tables.
Although you can create tables manually in WordPress if you know HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), for many non-technical WordPress users, this is simply not a realistic option.
Fortunately, WordPress plugins let you do almost anything you can imagine, and creating tables is no exception.
In this tutorial you will learn how to easily create and insert tables into your posts and pages without requiring knowledge of HTML or CSS or coding skills.
How To Create And Insert Tables Into Posts And Pages In WordPress
To create and add tables to your WordPress posts or pages with no HTML or CSS knowledge required, we’ll use a FREE WordPress plugin called TablePress.
TablePress
TablePress is a great 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 user interface that lets you easily edit your table data. Your tables can contain any kind of data, even formulas.
An additional JavaScript library can be used to include features like pagination, sorting, filtering, and more for your visitors. You can insert tables into your post content using shortcodes and even display tables inside text widgets.
A table can also be imported and exported from/to CSV files (e.g. from Excel), HTML files, and JSON.
This plugin was created by Tobias Bäthge and is licensed as Free Software under GNU General Public License 2 (GPL 2).
How To Use TablePress WP Plugin – Tutorial
To create and manage tables in WordPress, install and activate the TablePress plugin.
Download the plugin here:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/tablepress
Or install it 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 choose Plugin Options from the list of submenus …
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 the position of the TablePress menu entry in your Dashboard menu.
Normally, the menu item appears somewhere around the middle of your menu bar. If you plan to use this plugin a lot, then you can position the menu option towards the top of the admin menu by specifying “Top-level (middle)” on the User Options > Admin menu entry dropdown menu …
The TablePress menu item now shows at the top section of the menu list …
You can also play with other plugin options in the “Plugin Options” area, like formatting styles for your tables, default language, etc. If you don’t need to change this section, then just leave the options as the default.
With TablePress, tables are created and formatted within the plugin screen. Tables are then added via a shortcode into your text. The tables will then display or update after saving and publishing your pages or posts.
The benefit of doing this is that you can easily modify the information inside 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 …
Type in the 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 has been created, it will be listed 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 to display your table …
Once you have created a new table, adding content to it is easy.
In the “Table Content” section, just click inside the cell and either type or paste your content. You can add text, images and format your content (e.g. bold or italicize words, insert hyperlinks, etc …)
After your new table has been created, the plugin will display 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 or 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, 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” subsection. You can perform various table edits, like adding images and links, hiding, showing, inserting, deleting and duplicating selected rows and columns, adding new rows and columns, 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 showing on your site (and also allow users to specify 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 on your web browser displaying the table. Certain features such as the JavaScript options are disabled in preview mode, but will display when your table is published …
Remember to 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 go to TablePress > All Tables …
Your tables are displayed in this section. You can edit, see the shortcode, copy, export, delete and preview your tables …
How To Use The Shortcode To Insert Tables Into Your Posts And Pages
You can insert tables into your content using 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 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 be embedded 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 WordPress 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 in the post or page and click Insert Shortcode …
Your TablePress shortcode will be inserted into your content …
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 edit 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 page to view the updated information.
Another great time-saving feature of the TablePress plugin, is that if you plan to keep adding 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 an existing table, select TablePress > Export a Table in your WP admin menu …
In the “Export Tables” section, choose the table(s) you would like 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 the table file, you can then re-import the table into WordPress.
To import a table, go to the 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, or its own JSON format.
To import a table, select and enter the source in the “Import Tables” area. You can import multiple tables from compressed (ZIP) files and choose whether to import a table as a new table or write over an existing table.
To learn more about using TablePress, including accessing the plugin documentation for 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 quite a powerful and feature-rich plugin that is free and will help you easily create and embed tables into your site content.
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"This is an awesome training series. I have a pretty good understanding of WordPress already, but this is helping me to move somewhere from intermediate to advanced user!" - Kim Lednum