Being able to provide visitors with tables on your content can be very useful. Tables are great for sorting and presenting data to people 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 doesn’t let you do, such as giving you the option to create tables without having to learn code.
Although you can create tables manually 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 feasible option.
Fortunately, WordPress plugins let you do almost anything you can imagine, and inserting tables into your content is no exception.
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn how to create and add tables easily into your site’s pages with no coding skills required.
Creating And Inserting Tables Into Your Content Easily With WordPress
If you want to add tables to your WordPress posts or pages with no coding skills required, then the step-by-step tutorial below will show you how to easily add tables into your WordPress posts and pages using a FREE WordPress plugin called TablePress.
TablePress – WordPress Plugin
A powerful and time-saving plugin for creating, editing and managing tables in WordPress is TablePress.
TablePress doesn’t require you to have any knowledge of HTML, CSS, etc. It provides a simple user interface that allows you to easily edit table data. You can add any type of data to tables.
An additional JavaScript library can be used to add features like sorting, pagination, filtering, and more for your site visitors. You can easily insert tables into your posts and pages using shortcodes and display these using text widgets.
Tables can also be imported and exported from/to CSV files (e.g. from Excel), HTML files, and JSON.
The 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 posts and pages, install and activate the TablePress plugin.
Download the plugin here:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/tablepress
Or install it directly from within your WordPress Dashboard …
Once the plugin has been installed and activated, a new menu item will get added to your admin menu called TablePress …
Click on TablePress and select Plugin Options from the submenu list …
The “Plugin Options” area controls your plugin styling and display settings …
For example, in the “User Options” section, you can specify the position of the TablePress menu entry in your Dashboard menu.
Normally, the menu item appears somewhere near the middle of your menu. If you plan to use this plugin a lot, then you can easily position the menu option towards the top of the admin menu by selecting “Top-level (middle)” in the User Options > Admin menu entry dropdown menu …
The TablePress menu item will now show closer to the top section of the menu list …
You can also specify other settings in the “Plugin Options” tab, such as 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 modified within the plugin area. Tables are then placed via a shortcode into your pages. The table will then display or update after your post or page is published or updated.
The benefit of working directly from the plugin is that you can easily change the data inside your tables without having to open any of your posts and pages. The plugin then updates all of your table data in all locations where the table has been added to your content.
To create a new table select TablePress > Add New Table …
Type in a 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, and 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 the new table has been created, it will get added to the “All Tables” list and be assigned a unique Shortcode ID …
The TablePress shortcode allows you to easily add tables anywhere in your content by simply typing or copying and pasting the shortcode wherever you want to display your table …
Once a new table has been created, adding content to it is very 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. bold or italicize words, insert links, etc …)
After your new table has been created, the plugin also 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, print 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” subsection. You can insert links or images, hide, show, insert, delete and duplicate 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 visitors to sort, filter and search your table content, set the number of table rows showing on your post (and let visitors change 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 on your screen displaying the table. Certain features such as the JavaScript options are disabled in preview mode, but will display when your table is published …
Remember to click the Save Changes button when finished to save your new table information …
To view a list of all your tables TablePress > All Tables …
All the tables you have created are displayed in this section. You can edit, see the shortcode, copy, export, delete and preview tables …
Using The TablePress Shortcode To Insert Tables Into Your Pages And Blog Posts
You embed tables into your page content with a 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 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 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 WP editor …
TablePress Menu Icon In WordPress Text Editor Screen
Clicking on the menu icon opens a window containing a list of your available tables.
Select the table you want to embed into the content and click Insert Shortcode …
Your TablePress shortcode will be added …
The table 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 edit things after publishing the table without having to edit your post or page. Change the content in the plugin area, then save your new table settings and refresh your page to view the updated information.
Another great time-saving feature of the TablePress plugin, is that if you plan to keep adding data to an existing table, just export your current table, then add new items, 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 a table, select TablePress > Export a Table in the main menu …
In the “Export Tables” section, select the table(s) you would like to export (tip: 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 the table file, you can then easily re-import the table into WordPress.
To import a table, go to your sidebar menu and 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 source in the “Import Tables” section. You can import multiple tables from a compressed (ZIP) file and choose whether to import tables as a new table or to replace an existing table.
To learn more about using TablePress, including accessing the plugin documentation for extra 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 a very useful and feature-rich plugin that is free and will help you easily create and insert tables into your page content.
***
"Wow! I never knew there's so much to learn about WordPress! I bought one of the WordPress for Dummies three years ago, such authors need to be on this course!" - Rich Law, Create A Blog Now