The ability to easily add tables to your content can be really handy. Tables are great for sorting and presenting data to visitors in a way that makes your information easier to understand.
WordPress provides users with a great visual editor, but there are some things that the default editor won’t do, such as giving you the option 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 most non-technical users, this is simply not a feasible option.
Fortunately, WordPress plugins give users almost unlimited expansion capabilities, and adding tables to your content with the click of a mouse is no exception.
In this tutorial you will learn how to easily create and insert tables into your WordPress posts and pages with no coding skills required.
Creating And Adding Tables In Pages And Posts With WordPress
To create and add tables to your WordPress posts or pages with no coding skills required, we’ll use a FREE plugin called TablePress.
TablePress – WordPress Plugin
TablePress is a very powerful and time-saving plugin for creating, editing and managing tables in WordPress.
TablePress does not require you to have any knowledge or skills coding HTML, CSS, etc. It lets you easily edit your table data. You can add any type of data to tables.
An additional JavaScript library can be used to include features like sorting, pagination, filtering, and more for your visitors. You can insert tables into your pages and blog posts using shortcodes and display these using text widgets.
You can also import and export a table from/to CSV files (e.g. from Excel), HTML files, and JSON formats.
This plugin was written and developed by Tobias Bäthge and is licensed as Free Software under GNU General Public License 2 (GPL 2).
How To Use TablePress Plugin For WP – Step-By-Step Tutorial
To create and add tables to WordPress posts or pages, first install and activate the TablePress plugin.
You can download the plugin here:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/tablepress
Or install it from within your WordPress Dashboard …
After installing and activating the plugin, a new menu item will appear on your WP admin menu called TablePress …
Click on TablePress and select Plugin Options from the submenu list …
The “Plugin Options” page 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 Dashboard menu.
Normally, the menu entry displays around the middle of your menu column. If you plan to use this plugin a lot, then you can easily position the menu option close to the top of the menu by selecting “Top-level (middle)” on the User Options > Admin menu entry dropdown menu …
The TablePress menu item will now display closer to the top of the menu list …
You can also specify other plugin options in the “Plugin Options” tab, such as table formatting styles, default language, etc. Leave these options as they are if you don’t need to change things in this area.
With TablePress, tables are created and formatted within the plugin area. Tables are then placed via a shortcode into your posts. The tables will then display or update when publishing your page.
The advantage of doing this is that you can easily update the data in your tables without having to manually edit your pages and posts. TablePress then updates all of your table data in all instances where the table has been added to your content.
To create a new table select TablePress > Add New Table …
Enter a name, a description (optional), and the number of rows and columns you want for your 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 tables at anytime…
Once the new table is created, it will appear in 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 by simply inserting or copying and pasting the shortcode wherever you want your tables to display …
Once you have created a new table, adding content to it is really easy.
In the “Table Content” section, just click in the cell and 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 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 rows 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 modify your table content after creating it in the “Table Manipulation” subsection. You can perform various manipulations on your table, such as adding links and images, hiding, showing, inserting, deleting and duplicating 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 site users to sort, filter and search your table content, change the number of table rows displayed on your post (and also allow visitors to change 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 allowing you to preview your 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 save your table data …
Once 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 your tables will be displayed in this screen. You can edit, see shortcodes, copy, export, delete and preview your tables …
Using The TablePress Shortcode
You can insert tables into your posts and pages with a shortcode.
Get the shortcode for your tables by clicking on the Show Shortcode menu item under your table title to get the shortcode …
The plugin also adds a menu item to your WordPress 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 appear 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 WP editor …
TablePress Menu Icon In HTML Editor Screen
Clicking on the menu icon opens a window containing a list of all the available tables you have created.
Select the table you want to insert into your post or page and click Insert Shortcode …
Your TablePress shortcode will be added to your content …
Publish your post or page to display your table contents …
As stated earlier, one of the great things about this plugin is that you can edit data after publishing the table without having to open your post or page. Just 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 data to an existing table, just export your current table, then add new data, make changes, etc. You can then re-import your table 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 the main menu …
In the “Export Tables” section, choose the table(s) 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 file to your hard drive …
After editing and resaving your table file, you can then re-import the table into WordPress.
To import a table into WordPress, 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.
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 choose whether to import a table as a new table or to replace an existing table.
For more information about TablePress, including where to access the plugin documentation for additional 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 a very useful and feature-rich plugin that is free and will help you easily create and embed tables into your site content.
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