The ability to easily add tables to your website can be very useful. Tables are great for sorting and presenting data to visitors in a way that makes 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, like being able to 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 most non-technical WordPress users, this is simply not a realistic 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 tutorial you will learn how to create and add tables easily into your posts and pages with no coding skills required.
How To Easily Insert Tables Into Your Content With No Programming Skills Required
Follow the tutorial below to learn how to add tables into your WordPress posts and pages using a FREE plugin called TablePress.
WP Plugin – TablePress
A powerful and time-saving WordPress plugin that makes creating, editing and managing tables in WordPress a very simple and easy process is TablePress.
TablePress requires no knowledge of HTML, CSS, etc. The plugin provides a simple user interface that allows you to easily edit 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 include the tables into your page content using shortcodes and 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.
The plugin was written and developed by Tobias Bäthge and is licensed as Free Software under GNU General Public License 2 (GPL 2).
Using TablePress – Step-By-Step Tutorial
To create and manage tables in WordPress using TablePress, install and activate the TablePress plugin.
Download the plugin here:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/tablepress
Or install it from within your Dashboard …
Once the plugin has been installed and activated, a new menu item will get added to your admin menu called TablePress …
Click on TablePress and choose 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 displays around the middle of your menu bar. If you plan to use this plugin a lot, then you can easily position the menu option near the top of your admin menu by selecting “Top-level (middle)” on the User Options > Admin menu entry dropdown menu …
The TablePress menu item will now display near the top area of the menu list …
You can also specify other options in the “Plugin Options” tab, like formatting styles for your tables, default language, etc. Leave the settings as they are if you don’t need to change things in this area.
With TablePress, tables are created and modified within the plugin area. Tables are then placed via a shortcode into your text. Your table will then display or update after publishing your page.
The advantage of working directly from the plugin is that you can easily change the data inside your tables without having to touch your pages and posts. The plugin then updates all of your table information in all instances where the table has been added to your content.
To add a new table select TablePress > Add New Table …
Type in the table name, an optional description, 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 edit the name, description and size of any table you create at anytime…
Once your new table is created, it will get added to the “All Tables” list and get assigned a unique Shortcode ID …
The TablePress shortcode lets you easily insert tables anywhere inside a post or page simply by 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, just 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, displays a number of additional options that will 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 or the last row of the table to be the table footer, make the background of consecutive rows alternate in color, highlight rows when visitors hover their mouse over the table, display the table name and description above or below the table, and more …
You can also modify your table information after creating it in the “Table Manipulation” area. You can insert images and links, hide, show, insert, delete and clone selected columns and rows, add new columns and rows, combine 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 content (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 in your screen displaying the table. Certain features like JavaScript options are disabled in preview mode, but will display once your post or page is published …
Remember to click the Save Changes button when finished to save your new table information …
After you have created one or more tables, you can view a list of all your tables by choosing TablePress > All Tables …
All your tables are displayed in this section. You can edit, see shortcodes, copy, delete, export and preview your tables …
How To Use The TablePress Shortcode To Insert Tables Into Your Content
You can embed tables into page content using the TablePress shortcode.
Click on the Show Shortcode menu item under your 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 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 inside the “Text” area of the editor …
TablePress Menu Icon In WordPress HTML Editor Screen
Clicking on the menu icon brings up a list of all the available tables you have created.
Select the table you want to insert into your content and click Insert Shortcode …
Your TablePress shortcode will be inserted into your content …
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 information after publishing the table without having to edit your post or page. Edit the content in the plugin area, then save the 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 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, select TablePress > Export a Table in the main 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 table file, you can then easily re-import the table into WordPress.
To import a table into WordPress, go to the menu and 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, or its own format. You can also import existing tables from the WP-Table Reloaded plugin
To import a table, select and enter the import source in the “Import Tables” section. You can also import multiple tables from a ZIP file and choose whether to import a table as a new table or write over 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 author, 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 site content.
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