Being able to provide visitors with tables on your pages can be very useful. Tables help you sort and present data to visitors 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 it doesn’t do by default, such as letting you 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 realistic option.
Fortunately, you can do almost anything you can imagine 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 create and add tables easily into your WordPress posts and pages without requiring knowledge of HTML or CSS or coding skills.
Creating And Adding Tables Into Your Content Easily With WordPress
Follow the step-by-step tutorial below to learn how to create and add tables in WordPress using a FREE plugin called TablePress.
TablePress
TablePress is a very powerful and time-saving plugin that makes creating, editing and managing tables in your WordPress posts and pages simple and easy.
TablePress requires no knowledge or skills coding HTML, CSS, etc. The plugin provides a simple user interface that allows you to easily edit your table data. Tables can contain any type of data, even formulas.
An additional JavaScript library can be used to add features like sorting, pagination, filtering, and more for visitors. You can easily insert tables into your page content using shortcodes and even display tables inside text widgets.
Tables can also be imported and exported from/to CSV files (e.g. from Excel), HTML files, and JSON.
The plugin 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 WordPress – Tutorial
To create and add tables to WordPress posts or pages, first install and activate the TablePress plugin.
You can download the plugin here:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/tablepress
Or install it from your own Dashboard …
Once the plugin has been installed and activated, a new menu item will appear on your WP admin menu called TablePress …
Click on TablePress and choose Plugin Options from the list of submenus …
The “Plugin Options” section affects the plugin’s 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 entry displays somewhere in the middle of your menu. If you plan to use this plugin often, then you can position the menu option near the top of your menu by specifying “Top-level (middle)” on the User Options > Admin menu entry dropdown menu …
The TablePress menu item now shows closer to the top area of the admin menu …
You can also play with other settings in the “Plugin Options” screen, like formatting styles for your tables, default language, etc. If you don’t need to modify this section, simply leave the default options.
With TablePress, tables are created and modified inside the plugin screen. Tables are then added via a shortcode into your posts. Your table will then display after your content is saved.
The advantage of doing this 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 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 a table name, a description (optional), and the number of rows and columns you want 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 has been created, it will display in 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 a table …
Once a new table has been created, adding content to the 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. add bold text, insert hyperlinks, etc …)
After your new table has been created, you will see additional options for configuring 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, display alternate background colors on consecutive rows, highlight rows when a visitor hovers their mouse over the table, print the table name and description above or below the table, and more …
You can also modify your table after it has been created in the “Table Manipulation” subsection. You can perform a range of different table edits, like adding images and links, hiding, showing, inserting, deleting and duplicating 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 displayed on your pages (and let visitors 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 allowing you to preview the table. Certain features such as the JavaScript options are disabled in preview mode, but will display when your table is published …
Click the Save Changes button when finished to update your new table information …
Once you have created one or more tables, you can view a list of all your tables by selecting TablePress > All Tables …
A list of all the tables you have created will be displayed in this section. You can edit, see the shortcode, copy, delete, export and preview your tables …
Using The Shortcode To Embed Tables Into Your Pages And Blog Posts
You can embed a table inside any posts and pages using the TablePress shortcode.
You can get the shortcode for your tables by clicking 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 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 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 editor …
TablePress Menu Icon In WordPress Text Editor Screen
Clicking on the menu icon brings up a list of your available tables.
Select the table you want to add to the content and click Insert Shortcode …
Your TablePress shortcode will be added to your content …
The table and 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 edit information after publishing the table without having to edit 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 information.
Another great time-saving feature of the TablePress 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 table 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 (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 changing and resaving your file, you can then easily 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, an HTML file resembling a webpage, or its own JSON 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” area. You can also import multiple tables from compressed (ZIP) files and select whether to import tables as a new table or replace an existing table.
For more information about using TablePress, including where to access the plugin documentation for additional features, or 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 a very useful and feature-rich plugin that is free and will help you easily create and add tables into your WordPress posts and pages.
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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)