Being able to easily add tables on your website can be very useful. Tables are great for sorting and presenting data to people in a way that makes your information easier to understand.
WordPress offers a feature-rich visual editor, but there are some things that it doesn’t do by default, such as letting you 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 give users almost unlimited expansion capabilities, and adding tables to your content 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.
How To Add Tables In WordPress Content
If you want to create and add tables to your WordPress posts or pages and don’t have the skills and knowledge to create these 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 WordPress plugin called TablePress.
TablePress
A powerful and time-saving plugin that makes creating, editing and managing tables in your WordPress posts and pages simple and easy is TablePress.
TablePress requires no knowledge of HTML, CSS, etc. The plugin provides a simple interface that lets you easily edit your table data. You can add any kind of data to your tables.
An additional JavaScript library can be used to include features like sorting, pagination, filtering, and more for visitors. You can easily include the tables into your content using shortcodes and display tables 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 developed by Tobias Bäthge and is licensed as Free Software under GNU General Public License 2 (GPL 2).
Using TablePress WP Plugin – Tutorial
To create and add tables to WordPress, install and activate the TablePress plugin.
You can download the plugin here:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/tablepress
Or install it directly from within your own Dashboard …
Once you have installed and activated the plugin, a new menu item will get added to your WP 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 modify where the TablePress menu entry appears on your admin menu.
Normally, the menu item displays somewhere around 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 your menu by selecting “Top-level (middle)” on the User Options > Admin menu entry dropdown menu …
The TablePress menu entry now shows at the top section of your admin 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 the default options as they are if you don’t need to change things in this area.
With TablePress, tables are created and formatted inside the plugin section. Tables are then added via a shortcode into your WordPress posts and pages. The table will then display or update when publishing your pages or posts.
The advantage of working directly from the plugin is that you can easily update the information inside your tables without having to touch your pages. 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 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 edit the name, description and size of your table at anytime…
Once your new table has been created, it will display in the “All Tables” list and be assigned a unique Shortcode ID …
The TablePress shortcode allows you to easily insert tables anywhere in your content simply by typing or copying and pasting the shortcode wherever you want to display your table …
Once you have created a new table, adding content to your table is 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. 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 select the first row of your table to be the table header and the last row of the table to be the table footer, make the background of consecutive rows alternate in colour, highlight rows when visitors hover their mouse over the table, show 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 insert images or links, hide, show, insert, delete and clone selected rows and columns, add new columns and rows, combine 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 showing on your content (and also allow users to specify the number of rows displayed), display table information, etc …
You can preview your table anytime, by clicking on the Preview button …
A preview window will open on your web browser displaying your table. Certain features like JavaScript options are disabled in preview mode, but will display when your table is published …
Click the Save Changes button when finished to update your new table information …
To view a list of all the tables you have created click on TablePress > All Tables …
A list of all your tables will be displayed in this screen. You can edit, see the shortcode, copy, delete, export and preview your tables …
How To Use The TablePress Shortcode To Insert Tables Into Your Posts And Pages
You can insert a table inside posts and pages using the TablePress shortcode.
Click on the Show Shortcode menu item below 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 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 editor …
TablePress Menu Icon In WordPress HTML Editor Screen
Clicking on the menu icon brings up a list of your existing tables.
Select the table you want to embed in the post or page and click Insert Shortcode …
Your TablePress shortcode will be added to your content …
Publish the post or page to display your table and table contents …
As stated earlier, one of the great things about this plugin is that you can change data after publishing the table without having to edit your post or page. Edit the content in the plugin area, then save your new table settings and refresh your page to view the updated content.
Another great time-saving feature of the TablePress plugin, is that if you plan to keep adding data to an existing table, you can simply export your current table, then add new items, 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) 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 table file to your hard drive …
After making changes and resaving your table file, you can then easily reimport 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 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 import multiple tables from ZIP files and select whether to import tables as a new table or write over an existing table.
For more information about TablePress, including where to access documentation about 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 site content.
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"These tutorials have so much information and are easy to understand. If you use WordPress or plan to in the future these will help you with everything you need to know." - Valisa (Mesa, Arizona)