The ability to easily add tables to your website can be very useful. Tables are great for sorting and presenting 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 won’t let you do by default, such as letting you 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 many non-technical users, this is not a practical option.
Fortunately, you can do just about anything you need done on a WordPress site with plugins, and inserting tables into your content with the click of a mouse is no exception.
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn how to easily create and insert tables into your posts and pages with no coding skills required.
Creating And Inserting Tables Into Your Content With WordPress
If you want to add tables to your WordPress posts or pages and don’t have the skills and knowledge to create these using HTML or CSS, 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
TablePress is a great plugin that makes creating, editing and managing tables in WordPress simple and easy.
TablePress requires no knowledge of HTML, CSS, etc. The plugin provides a simple user interface that allows you to 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 visitors. You can easily insert tables into your page content using shortcodes and even display these inside text widgets.
A table can also be imported and exported from/to CSV files (e.g. from Excel), HTML files, and JSON.
TablePress was written and developed by Tobias Bäthge and is licensed as Free Software under GNU General Public License 2 (GPL 2).
How To Use TablePress Plugin For WP – Tutorial
To create and add tables to WordPress with TablePress, install and activate the TablePress plugin.
You can download the plugin here:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/tablepress
Or install it directly from your own WordPress Dashboard …
Once the plugin has been installed and activated, you will see a new menu item in your main menu called TablePress …
Click on TablePress and select Plugin Options from the submenu list …
The “Plugin Options” section controls your plugin styling and display settings …
For example, in the “User Options” section, you can specify where the TablePress menu entry appears on your Dashboard menu.
Normally, the menu entry appears somewhere near the middle of your menu. If you plan to use this plugin often, then you can easily position the menu option near the top of the Dashboard menu by selecting “Top-level (middle)” on the User Options > Admin menu entry dropdown menu …
The TablePress menu entry will now display close to the top area of the admin menu …
You can also specify other plugin options in the “Plugin Options” section, like table formatting styles, default language, and so on. If you don’t need to change these settings, then just leave the default options.
With TablePress, tables are created and modified within the plugin area. Tables are then placed via a shortcode into your WordPress posts and pages. The table will then display or update after your content is saved.
The great thing about doing this is that you can easily modify the data in your tables without having to touch your pages and posts. TablePress then updates all of your table information in all instances where the table has been added to your content.
To create a new table select TablePress > Add New Table …
Enter the name, a description (optional), and the number of rows and columns you would like for your 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 edit the name, description and size of any tables you create at anytime…
Once the new table is created, it will display in the “All Tables” list and be assigned a unique Shortcode ID …
The TablePress shortcode lets you easily add tables anywhere in your content by simply typing or copying and pasting the shortcode wherever you want your table to display …
Once a new table has been created, adding content to the table is really easy.
In the “Table Content” section, click inside 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. bold or italicize words, 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” area 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 a row 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 it has been created in the “Table Manipulation” area. You can perform various edits on your table, such as 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 that will allow your site users to sort, filter and search your table content, change the number of table rows showing on your post (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 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 table is published …
Click the Save Changes button after you are done editing to update your table data …
After you have created one or more tables, you can view a list of all your tables by clicking on TablePress > All Tables …
All the tables you have created are listed here. You can edit, see shortcodes, copy, delete, export and preview your tables …
How To Use The TablePress Shortcode To Insert Tables Into Your Pages And Blog Posts
You insert a table inside any pages and blog posts with the TablePress 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 mouse cursor where you want your 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 in the “Text” area of the WP editor …
TablePress Menu Icon In WordPress Text Editor Screen
Clicking on the menu icon displays a list of all the available tables you have created.
Select the table you want to embed in your content and click Insert Shortcode …
Your TablePress shortcode will be added to 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 change things after publishing the table without having to open your post or page. Change the content in the plugin area, then save your 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 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) you want 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 table file to your hard drive …
After editing and resaving your file, you can then easily reimport the table into WordPress.
To import a table, go to the admin menu and choose 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.
To import a table, select and enter the import source in the “Import Tables” section. You can import multiple tables from compressed (ZIP) files and select whether to import a table as a new table or to replace an existing table.
For more information about using the plugin, including where to access documentation about extra features, get technical support, contact the plugin developer, 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 free plugin will help you easily create and insert tables into your WordPress posts and pages.
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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