The ability to easily add tables to your website can be really handy. Tables help you sort and present data to visitors in a format that can make your information easier to understand.
The WordPress visual editor offers many features, but there are some things that it won’t do by default, 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 practical option.
Fortunately, WordPress plugins give users almost unlimited expansion capabilities, and creating tables is no exception.
In this tutorial you will learn how to create and insert tables easily into your site’s pages without requiring knowledge of HTML or CSS or coding skills.
How To Create And Insert Tables Into Pages And Posts With WordPress
If you want to create and add tables to your WordPress posts or pages without touching code, then the tutorial below will show you how to easily do this using a FREE WordPress plugin called TablePress.
WP Plugin – TablePress
A powerful and time-saving WordPress plugin that makes creating, editing and managing tables in WordPress a very simple and easy process is TablePress.
TablePress requires no knowledge of HTML, CSS, etc. The plugin provides a simple user interface that lets you easily edit table data. Your 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 site visitors. You can insert tables into your page content 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.
This plugin was developed 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 add tables to WordPress, first install and activate the TablePress plugin.
Download this plugin here:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/tablepress
Or install it from within your own Dashboard …
After installing and activating the plugin, a new menu item will appear on your WordPress admin menu called TablePress …
Click on TablePress and select Plugin Options from the list of submenus …
The “Plugin Options” screen controls your plugin styling and display settings …
For example, in the “User Options” section, you can change the position of the TablePress menu entry in your WP admin menu.
By default, the menu item appears around the middle of your menu column. If you plan to use this plugin a lot, then you can easily position the menu item close to the top of your Dashboard menu by selecting “Top-level (middle)” on the User Options > Admin menu entry dropdown menu …
The TablePress menu item now shows closer to the top of your menu …
You can also play with other options in the “Plugin Options” area, like formatting styles for your tables, default language, and so on. Leave all options as they are if you don’t need to change things in this area.
With TablePress, tables are created and edited within the plugin section. Tables are then placed via a shortcode into your WordPress posts and pages. Your tables will then display or update after your content is published.
The benefit of working directly from the plugin is that you can easily update the information in your tables without having to manually edit your posts. TablePress then updates all of your table data inside all posts and pages where the table has been added to your content.
To create a new table select TablePress > Add New Table …
Type in the 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, and click on the Add Table button to create your new table. You can change the name, description and size of any table you create at anytime…
Once the new table has been created, it will be listed in the “All Tables” list and be assigned a unique Shortcode ID …
The TablePress shortcode lets you easily insert tables anywhere inside a post or page by simply 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 it is really easy.
In the “Table Content” section, click in the cell and type or paste your content. You can add text, images and HTML formatting to your content (e.g. bold or italicize words, insert hyperlinks, 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, make the background of consecutive rows alternate in colour, 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 after it has been created in the “Table Manipulation” subsection. You can perform a number of table operations, like adding links or 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 that will allow your site users to sort, filter and search your table content, set the number of table rows displayed on your content (and let users specify 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 displaying your table. Certain features such as the JavaScript options are disabled in preview mode, but will display once your post or page is published …
Click the Save Changes button after you are done editing to update your new table information …
To view a list of all the tables you have created go to TablePress > All Tables …
All the tables you have created are displayed in this section. You can edit, see shortcodes, copy, export, delete and preview tables …
Using The Shortcode To Embed Tables Into Your Pages And Posts
You embed tables into your pages and posts using the TablePress shortcode.
Click on the Show Shortcode menu item below 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 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 inside the “Text” area of the WordPress editor …
TablePress Menu Icon In WordPress Text Editor Screen
Clicking on the menu icon brings up a list of all your existing tables.
Select the table you want to insert into the content and click Insert Shortcode …
Your TablePress shortcode will be added …
The table and 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 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 information, 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 admin menu …
In the “Export Tables” section, select the table(s) you want 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 file to your hard drive …
After editing and resaving your file, you can then reimport your 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, or its own JSON format.
To import a table, select and enter the import source in the “Import Tables” section. You can also import multiple tables from a compressed (ZIP) file and select whether to import a table as a new table or replace an existing table.
To learn more about using TablePress, including where to access the plugin documentation for additional features, 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 quite a powerful time saving plugin that is free and will help you easily create and insert 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