The ability to easily add tables to your pages can be really handy. Tables are great for sorting and presenting 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 the default editor doesn’t do, such as letting you easily create tables.
Although you can add tables manually to your content in WordPress if you have knowledge of HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), for most non-technical users, this is not a practical option.
Fortunately, WordPress plugins give users almost unlimited expansion capabilities, and adding tables to your content is no exception.
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn how to create and insert tables easily into your WordPress posts and pages with no coding skills required.
How To Create And Insert Tables In WordPress
If you want to add tables to your WordPress posts or pages without touching code, the tutorial below will show you how to add tables into your WordPress posts and pages using a FREE plugin called TablePress.
WordPress Plugin – TablePress
A very powerful and time-saving WordPress plugin that makes creating, editing and managing tables in your WordPress posts and pages simple and easy is TablePress.
TablePress requires no knowledge or skills coding 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 include features like pagination, sorting, filtering, and more for site users. You can easily insert tables into your pages and blog posts using shortcodes and display tables using 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 created 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, install and activate the TablePress plugin.
You can download the plugin here:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/tablepress
Or install it directly from your WordPress 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 choose Plugin Options from the submenu list …
The “Plugin Options” screen controls your plugin 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 appears around the middle of your menu column. If you plan to use this plugin often, then you can easily position the menu option close to the top of your menu by selecting “Top-level (middle)” on the User Options > Admin menu entry dropdown menu …
The TablePress menu item now appears closer to the top section of your menu list …
You can also play with other settings in the “Plugin Options” area, like formatting styles for your tables, default language, and so on. If you don’t need to change these settings, just leave the default options.
With TablePress, tables are created and formatted inside the plugin section. Tables are then added via a shortcode into your pages and posts. Your tables will then display or update when publishing or updating your content.
The advantage of working directly from the plugin is that you can easily change the information inside your tables without having to touch your posts. The plugin then updates all of your table information everywhere where the table has been added to your content.
To add 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 change the name, description and size of your table at anytime…
Once your new table is created, it will be listed in the “All Tables” list and be assigned a unique Shortcode ID …
The TablePress shortcode allows you to easily insert tables anywhere in your content simply by typing or copying and pasting the shortcode wherever you want your table to be displayed …
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 either type or paste your content. You can add text, images and HTML formatting to your content (e.g. bold or italicize words, insert hyperlinks, etc …)
After your new table has been 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, show the table name and description above or below the table, and more …
You can also edit your table after creating it in the “Table Manipulation” section. You can perform a range of manipulations on your table, 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, such as allowing visitors to sort, filter and search your table content, set the number of table rows showing on your content (and let visitors change 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 your 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 after you are done editing to update your table information …
After you have created one or more tables, you can view a list of all your tables by selecting TablePress > All Tables …
All the tables you have created are listed here. You can edit, see shortcodes, copy, delete, export and preview tables …
Using The Shortcode
You can embed tables into any content with a shortcode.
Click on the Show Shortcode menu item under your table title to get the shortcode …
The plugin also adds a menu item to your WordPress editor. This allows you to easily insert tables into your posts and pages while working on your content.
Place your 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 editor …
TablePress Menu Icon In WordPress Text Editor Screen
Clicking on the menu icon opens a window containing a list of your existing tables.
Select the table you want to add to your post or page and click Insert Shortcode …
Your TablePress shortcode will be inserted …
Your 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 more data to an existing table, just export your current table, then add new data, 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, select the table(s) 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 making changes and resaving the table file, you can then easily re-import the table into WordPress.
To import a table, go to the sidebar menu and 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.
To import a table, select and enter the 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.
To learn more about using the plugin, including where to access documentation about additional features, get technical support for the plugin, 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 powerful time saving plugin that is free and will help you easily create and embed 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)