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 format that can make your information easier to understand.
The WordPress visual editor offers many great features, but there are some things that the default editor doesn’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 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 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 posts and pages without requiring knowledge of HTML or CSS or coding skills.
How To Create And Add Tables To WordPress Pages And Posts
Follow the step-by-step tutorial below to learn how to easily add tables into your WordPress content using a FREE plugin called TablePress.
TablePress – WordPress Plugin
A powerful and time-saving WordPress plugin that makes creating, editing and managing tables in WordPress simple and easy is TablePress.
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 sorting, pagination, filtering, and more for your site visitors. You can easily insert tables into your page content using shortcodes and even display tables inside text widgets.
You can also import and export a table 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, first install and activate the TablePress plugin.
You can download this plugin here:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/tablepress
Or install it directly from within your own WordPress Dashboard …
Once the plugin has been installed and activated, a new menu item will get added to your main menu called TablePress …
Click on TablePress and select Plugin Options from the list of submenus …
The “Plugin Options” section controls your plugin styling and display settings …
For example, in the “User Options” section, you can modify the position of the TablePress menu entry in your Dashboard menu.
Normally, the menu item appears around the middle of your menu column. If you plan to use this plugin often, then you can easily position the menu item near the top of your admin menu by specifying “Top-level (middle)” on the User Options > Admin menu entry dropdown menu …
The TablePress menu entry will now show near the top section of your menu …
You can also specify other settings in the “Plugin Options” section, like table formatting styles, default language, etc. Leave all settings as they are if you don’t need to change things in this area.
With TablePress, tables are created and formatted within the plugin area. Tables are then inserted via a shortcode into your text. The tables will then display when your content is published.
The benefit of working directly from the plugin is that you can easily change the data inside your tables without having to touch your posts and pages. The plugin then updates all of your table data inside all posts and pages where the table has been added to your content.
To add a new table select TablePress > Add New Table …
Type in the 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 the new table has been created, it will display in the “All Tables” list and get assigned a unique Shortcode ID …
The TablePress shortcode allows you to easily insert tables anywhere inside a post or page simply by typing or copying and pasting the shortcode wherever you want to display a table …
Once a new table has been created, adding content to your table is easy.
In the “Table Content” section, just click in the cell and either 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 hyperlinks, etc …)
Once your new table is created, additional options appear that let you configure your table.
For example, in the “Table Options” section 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, 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 perform a number of table manipulations, like inserting images and 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 visitors to sort, filter and search your table content, change the number of table rows displayed 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 on the Preview button …
A preview window will open in your browser displaying the table. Certain features like JavaScript options are disabled in preview mode, but will display once your table is published …
Click the Save Changes button when finished to update your table data …
To view a list of all your tables TablePress > All Tables …
All your tables are displayed in a list. You can edit, see the shortcode, copy, export, delete and preview your tables …
How To Use The TablePress Shortcode
You can embed a table into pages and blog posts using a shortcode.
Click on the Show Shortcode menu item under 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 be embedded 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 HTML Editor Screen
Clicking on the menu icon displays a list of all your available tables.
Select the table you want to embed in your content and click Insert Shortcode …
Your TablePress shortcode will be inserted …
Your 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. Just tweak 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 the TablePress plugin, is that if you plan to keep adding data to an existing table, you can simply export your current table, then add new information, 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 an existing table, click on TablePress > Export a Table in the main menu …
In the “Export Tables” section, choose 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 changing and resaving your file, you can then reimport 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 (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 choose whether to import a table as a new table or replace an existing table.
To learn more about using TablePress, including where to access documentation about additional features, get plugin 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 quite a useful and feature-rich plugin that is free and will help you easily create and add tables into your page content.
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"These tutorials have so much information and are easy to understand. If you use WordPress or plan to in the future these will help you with everything you need to know." - Valisa (Mesa, Arizona)