Being able to easily add tables on your website can be very useful. Tables are great for sorting and presenting data to visitors in a format that can make your information easier to understand.
The WordPress visual editor is great, but there are some things that the default editor won’t let you do, like being able to easily create tables.
Although you can add tables manually to your content in WordPress if you know HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), for most 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 step-by-step tutorial you will learn how to easily create and add tables into your WordPress posts and pages with no coding skills required.
Adding Tables To WordPress Content
To add tables to your WordPress posts or pages without touching code, we’ll use a FREE WordPress plugin called TablePress.
TablePress
TablePress is a powerful and time-saving WordPress plugin that makes creating, editing and managing tables in your WordPress posts and pages a very simple and easy process.
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, even formulas to tables.
An additional JavaScript library can be used to add features like pagination, sorting, filtering, and more for your site visitors. You can include the tables into your content using shortcodes and even display these using text widgets.
Tables can also be imported and exported from/to CSV files (e.g. from Excel), HTML files, and JSON formats.
TablePress was created by Tobias Bäthge and is licensed as Free Software under GNU General Public License 2 (GPL 2).
Using TablePress WP Plugin – Step-By-Step Tutorial
To create and add tables to WordPress posts or pages, first install and activate the TablePress plugin.
You can download this plugin here:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/tablepress
Or install it from within your own WP Dashboard …
Once you have installed and activated the plugin, you will see a new menu item in your WP admin menu called TablePress …
Click on TablePress and choose 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 the position of the TablePress menu entry in your WP admin menu.
By default, the menu item appears 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 the Dashboard menu by selecting “Top-level (middle)” in the User Options > Admin menu entry dropdown menu …
The TablePress menu entry will now display towards the top area of your admin menu …
You can also play with other plugin options in the “Plugin Options” area, such as formatting styles for your tables, default language, and so on. If you don’t need to modify these settings, then just leave the options as the default.
With TablePress, you create edit and format your tables inside the plugin screen. Tables are then inserted via a shortcode into your pages. Your tables will then display or update when saving your pages or posts.
The advantage of working directly from the plugin is that you can easily update the data inside your tables without having to touch your posts and pages. TablePress then updates all of your table information in all locations where the table has been added to your content.
To add a new table select TablePress > Add New Table …
Enter a table 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, then click on the Add Table button to create your new table. You can change the name, description and size of your table at anytime…
Once your new table is created, it will be added to the “All Tables” list and get assigned a unique Shortcode ID …
The TablePress shortcode lets you easily insert tables anywhere in your content by simply inserting or copying and pasting the shortcode wherever you want to display a table …
Once you have created a new table, adding content to it is 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, you will see 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 colours on consecutive rows, highlight rows when visitors hover their mouse over the table, print the table name and description above or below the table, and more …
You can also edit your table information after it has been created in the “Table Manipulation” subsection. You can add links or images, hide, show, insert, delete and duplicate selected columns and rows, add new rows and columns, combine cells, etc …
You can also enable JavaScript library features in your tables that will allow visitors to sort, filter and search your table content, set the number of table rows displayed on your posts (and let users specify the number of rows displayed), display table information, etc …
You can preview your table anytime, by clicking the Preview button …
A preview window will open in your web browser displaying the table. Certain features like JavaScript options are disabled in preview mode, but will display when your table is published …
Remember to 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 choose TablePress > All Tables …
A list of all the tables you have created will be displayed in this area. You can edit, see shortcodes, copy, delete, export and preview your tables …
How To Use The TablePress Shortcode
You embed a table into your pages and blog posts with a shortcode.
You can get the shortcode for your tables by clicking on the Show Shortcode menu item below the 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 the table to show then click the TablePress menu icon …
TablePress Menu Icon In WordPress 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 displays a list of all your existing tables.
Select the table you want to embed in your content and click Insert Shortcode …
Your TablePress shortcode will be added to your content …
Publish your post or page to view the 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. Change the content in the plugin area, then save the new table settings and refresh your page to view the updated information.
Another great time-saving feature of this plugin, is that if you plan to keep adding more 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, 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 table file to your hard drive …
After making changes and resaving your table file, you can then easily 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 resembling a webpage, or its own JSON format.
To import a table, select and enter the source in the “Import Tables” section. You can also import multiple tables from compressed (ZIP) files and select whether to import a table as a new table or write over an existing table.
To learn more about the plugin, including where to access the plugin documentation for additional features, or 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 quite a useful time saving plugin that is free and will help you easily create and add tables into your site content.
***
"If you're new to WordPress, this can stand on its own as a training course and will stay with you as you progress from beginner to advanced and even guru status." - Bruce (Columbus, Ohio)