The ability to easily add tables to your pages can be really handy. Tables help you sort and present data to people in a way that makes your information easier to understand.
WordPress offers a great 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 create tables manually in WordPress if you have knowledge of HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), for many non-technical WordPress users, this is not a realistic option.
Fortunately, WordPress plugins let you do almost anything you can imagine, 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 WordPress posts and pages without requiring knowledge of HTML or CSS or coding skills.
How To Add Tables In WordPress
To create and add tables into your WordPress content with no HTML or CSS knowledge required, we’ll use a FREE WordPress plugin called TablePress.
TablePress – WP Plugin
A very powerful and time-saving WordPress plugin for creating, editing and managing tables in WordPress is TablePress.
TablePress requires no knowledge or skills coding HTML, CSS, etc. It provides a simple user interface that lets you easily edit table data. Tables can contain any kind of data, even formulas.
An additional JavaScript library can be used to include features like sorting, pagination, filtering, and more for site users. You can insert tables into your content using shortcodes and even display these using text widgets.
A table can also be imported and exported from/to CSV files (e.g. from Excel), HTML files, and JSON formats.
TablePress was developed by Tobias Bäthge and is licensed as Free Software under GNU General Public License 2 (GPL 2).
How To Use TablePress WP Plugin – Tutorial
To create and manage tables in WordPress, 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 you have installed and activated the plugin, you will see a new menu item in your admin menu called TablePress …
Click on TablePress and select Plugin Options from the submenu list …
The “Plugin Options” section affects the plugin’s behavior in different areas of your site …
For example, in the “User Options” section, you can change the position of the TablePress menu entry in your admin menu.
Normally, the menu item appears somewhere in the middle of your menu bar. If you plan to use this plugin a lot, then you can position the menu option closer to the top of your Dashboard menu by choosing “Top-level (middle)” in the User Options > Admin menu entry dropdown menu …
The TablePress menu item will now appear at the top area of the menu list …
You can also specify other settings in the “Plugin Options” section, such as formatting styles for your tables, default language, etc. If you don’t need to change these settings, then just leave the default options.
With TablePress, tables are created and modified inside the plugin screen. Tables are then added via a shortcode into your pages and posts. Your table will then display when saving your post.
The great thing about doing this is that you can easily modify the information inside your tables without having to manually edit your pages and posts. TablePress then updates all of your table information 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 table 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 change the name, description and size of your table at anytime…
Once your new table is created, it will appear in the “All Tables” list and be assigned a unique Shortcode ID …
The TablePress shortcode allows you to easily insert tables anywhere inside a post or page simply by inserting 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 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 HTML formatting to your content (e.g. bold or italicize words, insert hyperlinks, etc …)
Once your new table is created, displays a number of additional options that will 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 colour, highlight rows when visitors hover their mouse over the table, show 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 table manipulations, such as adding links or images, 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, set the number of table rows displayed on your site (and let visitors specify the number of rows displayed), display table information, etc …
You can see how your table looks anytime, by clicking the Preview button …
A preview window will open allowing you to preview your table. Certain features such as the JavaScript options are disabled in preview mode, but will display when your post or page is published …
Click the Save Changes button when finished to update your table information …
After you have created one or more tables, you can view a list of all your tables by clicking on 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, export, delete and preview tables …
How To Use The Shortcode
You embed tables into your content with the TablePress shortcode.
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 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 be embedded 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 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 the post or page and click Insert Shortcode …
Your TablePress shortcode will be inserted into your content …
Publish the post or page to display the table contents …
As stated earlier, one of the great things about TablePress is that you can edit things after publishing the table without having to open your post or page. Edit the content in the plugin area, then save your new table settings and refresh your page to view the updated content.
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 exported 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 your main 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 file to your hard drive …
After editing and resaving your table file, you can then easily re-import 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, an HTML file, or its own format.
To import a table, select and enter the import source in the “Import Tables” area. You can import multiple tables from compressed (ZIP) files and select whether to import a table as a new table or replace an existing table.
For more information about the plugin, including accessing documentation about extra features, get technical support for the plugin, 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 an extremely powerful and feature-rich free plugin will help you easily create and embed tables into your site content.
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