The ability to easily add tables to your pages can be really handy. Tables are great for sorting and presenting data to visitors in a format that can make your information easier to understand.
WordPress offers a feature-rich visual editor, but there are some things that the default editor won’t do, such as letting you 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 WordPress users, this is simply not a realistic option.
Fortunately, WordPress plugins let you do almost anything you can imagine, and adding tables to your content with the click of a mouse is no exception.
In this tutorial you will learn how to easily create and add tables into your pages and blog posts without requiring knowledge of HTML or CSS or coding skills.
Creating And Adding Tables To WordPress Pages And Posts
If you want to add tables to your WordPress posts or pages and don’t have the skills or knowledge to create these using HTML or CSS, the tutorial below will show you how to add tables into your WordPress posts and pages using a FREE plugin called TablePress.
TablePress
A very powerful and time-saving WordPress plugin for creating, editing and managing tables in WordPress is TablePress.
TablePress does not require you to have any knowledge or skills coding HTML, CSS, etc. The plugin lets you easily edit your table data. Your tables can contain any kind of data, even formulas.
An additional JavaScript library can be used to add features like pagination, sorting, filtering, and more for site users. You can easily insert 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.
TablePress was created 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 add tables to WordPress, first install and activate the TablePress plugin.
You can download the plugin here:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/tablepress
Or install it from your own WordPress Dashboard …
Once you have installed and activated the plugin, you will see a new menu item has been added to your WordPress admin menu called TablePress …
Click on TablePress and choose Plugin Options from the submenu list …
The “Plugin Options” area affects the plugin’s styling and display settings …
For example, in the “User Options” section, you can change where the TablePress menu entry appears on your Dashboard menu.
Normally, the menu item appears somewhere near the middle of your menu column. If you plan to use this plugin often, then you can position the menu option close to the top of the admin menu by selecting “Top-level (middle)” on the User Options > Admin menu entry dropdown menu …
The TablePress menu entry will now display towards the top section of the menu …
You can also play with other settings in the “Plugin Options” screen, such as formatting styles for your tables, default language, and so on. Leave the settings as they are if you don’t need to change things in this section.
With TablePress, you create edit and format your tables inside the plugin area. Tables are then inserted via a shortcode into your content. The table will then display when saving your pages or posts.
The great thing about working directly from the plugin is that you can easily update the information in your tables without having to open any of your pages and posts. TablePress then updates all of your table data in all locations where the table has been added to your content.
To add a new table select TablePress > Add New Table …
Type in the name, a description (optional), and the number of rows and columns you want for your 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 your tables at anytime…
Once your new table has been created, it will be added to 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 your table …
Once you have created a new table, adding content to it is easy.
In the “Table Content” section, just click inside the cell and either 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, additional options appear that let you configure your table.
For example, in the “Table Options” area you can specify 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 color, highlight a row when visitors hover their mouse over the table, print the table name and description above or below the table, and more …
You can also modify your table content after it has been created in the “Table Manipulation” area. You can perform a range of different manipulations on your table, like inserting images and links, hiding, showing, inserting, deleting and duplicating selected columns and rows, adding new rows and columns, combining 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 post (and also allow users to 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 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 after you are done editing to update your table data …
To view a list of all your tables TablePress > All Tables …
All the tables you have created are listed here. You can edit, see the shortcode, copy, delete, export and preview your tables …
How To Use The TablePress Shortcode To Insert Tables Into Your Page Content
You can insert a table inside any content using a shortcode.
Click on the Show Shortcode menu item under 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 mouse cursor where you want your table to appear then click the TablePress menu icon …
TablePress Menu Icon In Visual Editor Screen
Note: You can also insert a table when working in the “Text” area of the WordPress editor …
TablePress Menu Icon In WordPress HTML Editor Screen
Clicking on the menu icon opens a window containing a list of all the available tables you have created.
Select the table you want to embed in the content and click Insert Shortcode …
Your TablePress shortcode will be inserted into your content …
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. Just tweak the content in the plugin area, then save the new table settings and refresh your page to view the updated content.
Another great time-saving feature of this plugin, is that if you plan to keep adding more 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, click on TablePress > Export a Table in the WP admin menu …
In the “Export Tables” section, select 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 table file to your hard drive …
After making changes and resaving the table file, you can then 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” area. You can import multiple tables from ZIP files and select whether to import tables as a new table or to replace an existing table.
For more information about using the plugin, including where to access the plugin documentation for additional features, get technical support, 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 an extremely useful time saving free plugin will help you easily create and add tables into your site content.
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"This is an awesome training series. I have a pretty good understanding of WordPress already, but this is helping me to move somewhere from intermediate to advanced user!" - Kim Lednum