Being able to provide visitors with tables on your website 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 is great, but there are some things that the default editor won’t let you do, such as letting you 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 feasible option.
Fortunately, WordPress plugins let you do almost anything you can imagine, and inserting tables into your content is no exception.
In this tutorial you will learn how to create and insert tables easily into your posts and pages with no coding skills required.
How To Create And Add Tables In Posts And Pages In WordPress
If you want to add tables to your WordPress posts or pages and don’t have the skills or knowledge to create these using HTML or CSS, the tutorial below will show you how to easily do this using a FREE plugin called TablePress.
TablePress
A very powerful and time-saving plugin for creating, editing and managing tables in WordPress is TablePress.
TablePress requires no knowledge of HTML, CSS, etc. The plugin lets you easily edit your table data. You can add any kind of data to your tables.
An additional JavaScript library can be used to add features like sorting, pagination, filtering, and more for your visitors. You can easily include the tables into your page content using shortcodes and display these inside text widgets.
You can also import and export a table from/to CSV files (e.g. from Excel), HTML files, and JSON formats.
TablePress was created by Tobias Bäthge and is licensed as Free Software under GNU General Public License 2 (GPL 2).
How To Use TablePress WordPress Plugin – Step-By-Step Tutorial
To create and add tables to WordPress, install and activate the TablePress plugin.
You can download this plugin here:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/tablepress
Or install it from within your own WP Dashboard …
After the plugin has been installed and activated, you will see a new menu item added to your WordPress admin menu called TablePress …
Click on TablePress and select Plugin Options from the submenu list …
The “Plugin Options” area affects the plugin’s behavior in different areas of your site …
For example, in the “User Options” section, you can specify where the TablePress menu entry appears on your admin menu.
By default, the menu entry appears around the middle of your menu bar. If you plan to use this plugin a lot, then you can easily position the menu item closer to the top of the admin menu by specifying “Top-level (middle)” on the User Options > Admin menu entry dropdown menu …
The TablePress menu item now appears at the top of the admin menu …
You can also play with other options in the “Plugin Options” tab, such as formatting styles for your tables, default language, etc. If you don’t need to modify these settings, simply leave the options as the default.
With TablePress, you create edit and format your tables inside the plugin section. Tables are then inserted via a shortcode into your pages. The table will then display or update after republishing or saving your content.
The benefit of doing this 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 create 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, then click on the Add Table button to create your new table. You can edit the name, description and size of your tables at anytime…
Once the new table is created, it will be listed in the “All Tables” list and get assigned a unique Shortcode ID …
The TablePress shortcode lets you easily add tables anywhere inside a post or page 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 your table is easy.
In the “Table Content” section, click inside 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 links, 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 select 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 colours 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 information after it has been created in the “Table Manipulation” area. You can insert images or links, hide, show, insert, delete and duplicate selected rows and columns, add new rows and columns, combine 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 displayed 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 on the Preview button …
A preview window will open on your screen allowing you to preview your table. Certain features like JavaScript options are disabled in preview mode, but will display once your post or page is published …
Click the Save Changes button after you are done editing to save your table data …
To view a list of all your tables TablePress > All Tables …
A list of all your tables will be 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 Posts And Pages
You insert a table into any pages and blog posts with a shortcode.
Click on the Show Shortcode menu item below 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 show then click the TablePress menu icon …
TablePress Menu Icon In Visual Editor Screen
Note: You can also add a table when working in the “Text” area of the editor …
TablePress Menu Icon In WordPress HTML Editor Screen
Clicking on the menu icon displays a list of your existing tables.
Select the table you want to insert into the post or page and click Insert Shortcode …
Your TablePress shortcode will be placed in the location you specified …
Your table will display as soon as you publish your post or page …
As stated earlier, one of the great things about this plugin is that you can change data 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 information.
Another great time-saving feature of the TablePress plugin, is that if you plan to keep adding data to an existing table, just export your current table, then add new data, 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 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 (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 table file to your hard drive …
After changing and resaving your file, you can then reimport the table into WordPress.
To import a table into WordPress, 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 tables as a new table or write over an existing table.
To learn more about using the plugin, including where to access the plugin documentation for extra 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 an extremely powerful and feature-rich free plugin will help you easily create and embed tables into your page content.
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