The ability to easily add tables to your content can be very useful. Tables help you sort and present data to people in a format that can make your information easier to understand.
WordPress offers a great visual editor, but there are some things that it doesn’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 know HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), for most non-technical users, this is simply not a realistic option.
Fortunately, WordPress plugins let you do almost anything you can imagine, and inserting tables into your content with the click of a mouse 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.
How To Create And Insert Tables Into WordPress Pages And Posts Easily Without Coding Skills
If you want to create and add tables to your WordPress posts or pages without touching code, the tutorial below will show you how to easily do this using a FREE plugin called TablePress.
TablePress – WP Plugin
A very powerful and time-saving WordPress plugin for creating, editing and managing tables in WordPress is TablePress.
TablePress doesn’t require you to have any knowledge of HTML, CSS, etc. It lets you easily edit table data. Tables can contain any kind of data, even formulas.
An additional JavaScript library can be used to add features like pagination, sorting, filtering, and more for your visitors. You can insert tables into your page content using shortcodes and display these using text widgets.
You can also import and export tables from/to CSV files (e.g. from Excel), HTML files, and JSON formats.
TablePress was written and developed by Tobias Bäthge and is licensed as Free Software under GNU General Public License 2 (GPL 2).
Using TablePress WP Plugin – Step-By-Step Tutorial
To create and manage tables in WordPress, install and activate the TablePress plugin.
You can download this plugin here:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/tablepress
Or install it from your own Dashboard …
After the plugin has been installed and activated, you will see a new menu item has been added to your admin menu called TablePress …
Click on TablePress and choose Plugin Options from the list of submenus …
The “Plugin Options” section 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 WP admin menu.
Normally, the menu entry displays somewhere in the middle of your menu bar. If you plan to use this plugin a lot, then you can position the menu option near the top of the menu by specifying “Top-level (middle)” in the User Options > Admin menu entry dropdown menu …
The TablePress menu item now appears towards the top section of the admin menu …
You can also play with other options in the “Plugin Options” tab, such as table formatting styles, default language, etc. If you don’t need to change this section, simply leave the default options.
With TablePress, you create edit and format tables inside the plugin screen. Tables are then inserted via a shortcode into your content. Your table will then display or update after your content is published.
The advantage of working directly from the plugin is that you can easily update the information inside your tables without having to open any of your posts. The plugin then updates all of your table information 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 a table name, an optional description, 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, then click on the Add Table button to create your new table. You can change the name, description and size of your table at anytime…
Once your new table has been 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 in your content simply by typing or copying and pasting the shortcode wherever you want your table to display …
Once you have created a new table, adding content to the table is really easy.
In the “Table Content” section, just click in 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” 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, display alternate background colours on consecutive rows, 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 modify your table information after creating it in the “Table Manipulation” area. You can add links or images, hide, show, insert, delete and duplicate selected columns and rows, add new columns and rows, combine cells, etc …
You can also enable JavaScript library features in your tables, such as allowing visitors to sort, filter and search your table content, set the number of table rows showing on your pages (and let visitors 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 displaying the 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 information …
After you have created one or more tables, you can view a list of all your tables by clicking on TablePress > All Tables …
All your tables are listed here. You can edit, see the shortcode, copy, export, delete and preview tables …
Using The Shortcode
You can embed a table inside any page content with the TablePress shortcode.
Click on the Show Shortcode menu item under your 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 mouse cursor where you want the 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 WordPress editor …
TablePress Menu Icon In WordPress HTML Editor Screen
Clicking on the menu icon displays a list of all existing tables.
Select the table you want to embed in the post or page and click Insert Shortcode …
Your TablePress shortcode will be placed in the location you specified …
Publish your post or page to view the table …
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 page to view the updated information.
Another great time-saving feature of the TablePress plugin, is that if you plan to keep adding new 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 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 changing 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, 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 also 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 where to access the plugin documentation for additional 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 and feature-rich plugin that is free and will help you easily create and add tables into your page content.
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