Being able to display tables on your website can be really handy. 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 the default editor won’t let you do, such as letting you easily create tables.
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 many non-technical users, this is 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 add tables easily into your pages and blog posts with no coding skills required.
How To Create And Add Tables In WordPress Pages And Posts
If you want to create and add tables to your WordPress posts or pages and don’t have the skills to create tables using HTML or CSS, 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
TablePress is a great WordPress plugin for creating, editing and managing tables in WordPress.
TablePress does not require you to have any knowledge of HTML, CSS, etc. It provides a simple user interface that lets you easily edit your table data. You can add any type of data, even formulas to tables.
An additional JavaScript library can be used to add features like sorting, pagination, filtering, and more for visitors. You can easily insert tables into your pages and blog posts 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.
TablePress was developed by Tobias Bäthge and is licensed as Free Software under GNU General Public License 2 (GPL 2).
How To Use TablePress – Step-By-Step Tutorial
To create and manage tables in WordPress posts or pages, first install and activate the TablePress plugin.
Download this plugin here:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/tablepress
Or install it directly from within your own WordPress Dashboard …
Once you have installed and activated the plugin, you will see a new menu item has been added to your Dashboard menu called TablePress …
Click on TablePress and select Plugin Options from the submenu list …
The “Plugin Options” section affects the plugin’s behavior in different areas of your site …
For example, in the “User Options” section, you can modify the position of the TablePress menu entry in your WP admin menu.
By default, the menu item displays somewhere around the middle of your menu. If you plan to use this plugin often, then you can position the menu option closer to the top of the menu by specifying “Top-level (middle)” on the User Options > Admin menu entry dropdown menu …
The TablePress menu item will now display closer towards the top area of the menu list …
You can also play with other plugin options in the “Plugin Options” section, like formatting styles for your tables, default language, etc. Leave all settings as they are if you don’t need to change things in this section.
With TablePress, tables are created and edited inside the plugin section. Tables are then placed via a shortcode into your text. The tables will then display or update when republishing or saving your content.
The benefit of doing this is that you can easily change the information in your tables without having to touch 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, 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, and click on the Add Table button to create your new table. You can edit the name, description and size of any table you create at anytime…
Once the new table is created, it will appear in the “All Tables” list and be assigned a unique Shortcode ID …
The TablePress shortcode allows you to easily insert tables anywhere inside a post or page by simply inserting or copying and pasting the shortcode wherever you want your table to display …
Once a new table has been created, adding content to it is very easy.
In the “Table Content” section, click in the cell and type or paste the content you want to display. You can add text, images and HTML formatting to your content (e.g. add bold text, insert links, etc …)
Once your new table is created, displays a number of additional options that will allow you to 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 colors on consecutive rows, 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 content after creating it in the “Table Manipulation” section. You can perform a range of table edits, like adding images and links, 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 site visitors to sort, filter and search your table content, change the number of table rows showing on your pages (and also allow users to 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 on your web browser displaying the table. Certain features such as the 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 new table data …
To view a list of all the tables you have created go to TablePress > All Tables …
Your tables are listed here. You can edit, see shortcodes, copy, delete, export and preview tables …
How To Use The Shortcode To Insert Tables Into Your Pages And Posts
You embed a table into any page content using a shortcode.
You can 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 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 your 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 in the “Text” area of the WP editor …
TablePress Menu Icon In Text Editor Screen
Clicking on the menu icon displays a list of all existing tables.
Select the table you want to add to the content and click Insert Shortcode …
Your TablePress shortcode will be inserted into your content …
Your table 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 the contents of your table after publishing the table without having to edit 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 content.
Another great time-saving feature of this plugin, is that if you plan to keep adding data to an existing table, you can simply 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, click on 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 editing and resaving the table file, you can then easily 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 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 source in the “Import Tables” area. You can import multiple tables from a ZIP file and select whether to import a table as a new table or write over an existing table.
To learn more about TablePress, including accessing documentation about additional 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 powerful and feature-rich plugin that is free and will help you easily create and embed tables into your site content.
***
"I am beyond impressed with what you have put together. I can tell that you put a ton of hard work into building what you have. You have the absolute best content on WordPress I have ever seen!" - Robert T. Jillie