The ability to easily add tables to your website can be really handy. Tables help you sort and present 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 let you do by default, like being able to create tables without having to learn code.
Although you can add tables manually to your content in WordPress if you have knowledge of HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), for most non-technical users, this is not a feasible option.
Fortunately, WordPress plugins let you do almost anything you can imagine, and creating tables is no exception.
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn how to easily create and insert tables into your content with no coding skills required.
How To Add Tables Into Your Content In WordPress
To add tables to your WordPress posts or pages without touching code, we’ll use a FREE plugin called TablePress.
WordPress Plugin – TablePress
TablePress is a great plugin for creating, editing and managing tables in WordPress.
TablePress requires no knowledge or skills coding HTML, CSS, etc. It 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 your site visitors. You can include the tables into your post content using shortcodes and display these inside text widgets.
Tables can also be imported and exported 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 Plugin For WordPress – Tutorial
To create and add tables to WordPress using TablePress, first install and activate the TablePress plugin.
You can download this plugin here:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/tablepress
Or install it directly from within your own Dashboard …
Once you have installed and activated the plugin, you will see a new menu item on your admin menu called TablePress …
Click on TablePress and choose 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 WP 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 easily position the menu option near the top of your admin menu by choosing “Top-level (middle)” in the User Options > Admin menu entry dropdown menu …
The TablePress menu item now shows at the top area of the menu list …
You can also specify other plugin options in the “Plugin Options” area, like table formatting styles, default language, etc. If you don’t need to change this section, just leave the default options.
With TablePress, tables are created and formatted inside the plugin area. Tables are then inserted via a shortcode into your text. Your tables will then display or update after publishing your page.
The great thing about doing this is that you can easily modify the data inside your tables without having to manually edit your posts and pages. TablePress then updates all of your table information everywhere where the table has been added to your content.
To add a new table select TablePress > Add New Table …
Enter a 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, then click on the Add Table button to create your new table. You can change the name, description and size of any tables you create 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 allows you to easily add tables anywhere inside a post or page simply by typing or copying and pasting the shortcode wherever you want to display a table …
Once a new table has been created, adding content to your table is easy.
In the “Table Content” section, just click in the cell and either 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 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 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 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 modify your table after creating it in the “Table Manipulation” subsection. You can perform a range of table operations, like inserting images or links, hiding, showing, inserting, deleting and cloning 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 visitors to sort, filter and search your table content, change the number of table rows displayed on your posts (and let visitors change 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 displaying the table. Certain features like JavaScript options are disabled in preview mode, but will display when your post or page is published …
Click the Save Changes button when finished to save your new table data …
Once you have created one or more tables, you can view a list of all your tables by selecting 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
You insert tables into any posts and pages using a shortcode.
Get the shortcode for your tables by clicking on the Show Shortcode menu item below 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 be embedded then click the TablePress menu icon …
TablePress Menu Icon In Visual Editor Screen
Note: You can also add a table when working inside the “Text” area of the WordPress editor …
TablePress Menu Icon In Text Editor Screen
Clicking on the menu icon brings up a list of all your tables.
Select the table you want to embed into the post or page and click Insert Shortcode …
Your TablePress shortcode will be added …
The table contents will display as soon as you publish your post or page …
As stated earlier, one of the great things about TablePress is that you can change things after publishing the table without having to open your post or page. Edit the content in the plugin area, then save the new table settings and refresh your content 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 information, 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 a table, click on TablePress > Export a Table in the WP admin menu …
In the “Export Tables” section, choose 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 file to your hard drive …
After changing and resaving your file, you can then easily reimport 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 resembling a webpage, 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 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 documentation about extra features, get technical support for the plugin, 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 time saving plugin that is free and will help you easily create and insert tables into your WordPress posts and pages.
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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)