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 way that makes your information easier to understand.
The WordPress visual editor is great, but there are some things that the default editor doesn’t let you do, like being able to create tables without having to learn code.
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 users, this is not a practical option.
Fortunately, you can do almost anything you need done on a WordPress site with plugins, and creating tables is no exception.
In this 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.
How To Create And Insert Tables With WordPress
To create and add tables to your WordPress posts or pages with no coding skills required, we’ll use a FREE WordPress plugin called TablePress.
TablePress – WordPress Plugin
TablePress is a great WordPress plugin for creating, editing and managing tables in WordPress.
TablePress requires no knowledge or skills coding HTML, CSS, etc. It provides a simple user interface that lets you easily edit table data. Your 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 your site visitors. You can insert tables into your post 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.
This plugin was created by Tobias Bäthge and is licensed as Free Software under GNU General Public License 2 (GPL 2).
How To Use TablePress – Tutorial
To create and manage tables in WordPress posts and pages, first install and activate the TablePress plugin.
You can download the plugin here:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/tablepress
Or install it from within your WordPress Dashboard …
After the plugin has been installed and activated, a new menu item will get added to your main menu called TablePress …
Click on TablePress and select Plugin Options from the list of submenus …
The “Plugin Options” page controls your plugin styling and display settings …
For example, in the “User Options” section, you can change where the TablePress menu entry appears on your WP admin menu.
Normally, the menu item displays somewhere around the middle of your menu bar. If you plan to use this plugin a lot, then you can position the menu item closer to the top of your Dashboard menu by specifying “Top-level (middle)” in the User Options > Admin menu entry dropdown menu …
The TablePress menu entry will now show close to the top section of your menu list …
You can also specify other settings in the “Plugin Options” section, like table formatting styles, default language, etc. Leave all default options as they are if you don’t need to change things in this area.
With TablePress, you create and edit your tables within the plugin screen. Tables are then inserted via a shortcode into your posts. Your table will then display or update after your content is republished.
The benefit of working directly from the plugin is that you can easily change the data inside your tables without having to manually edit your pages and posts. TablePress then updates all of your table information in all locations where the table has been added to your content.
To create a new table select TablePress > Add New Table …
Type in a table name, an optional description, and the number of rows and columns you would like 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 any tables you create at anytime…
Once the new table has been created, it will display in the “All Tables” list and get assigned a unique Shortcode ID …
The TablePress shortcode lets you easily insert tables anywhere in your content by simply 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 very easy.
In the “Table Content” section, 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 links, etc …)
After your new table has been created, you will see a number of additional options that will allow you to 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 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” subsection. You can perform a range of different table manipulations, such as inserting links or images, hiding, showing, inserting, deleting and duplicating selected columns and rows, adding new rows and columns, combining cells, etc …
You can also enable JavaScript library features in your tables that will allow your visitors to sort, filter and search your table content, change the number of table rows displayed on your site (and let users specify the number of rows displayed), display table information, etc …
You can preview your table anytime, by clicking on the Preview button …
A preview window will open on your browser displaying your table. Certain features like JavaScript options are disabled in preview mode, but will display when your table is published …
Click the Save Changes button when finished to save your new table information …
To view a list of all your tables TablePress > All Tables …
All the tables you have created are listed here. You can edit, see shortcodes, copy, export, delete and preview tables …
How To Use The Shortcode
You can embed a table into pages and posts with a shortcode.
Get the shortcode for your tables by clicking 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 appear then click the TablePress menu icon …
TablePress Menu Icon In Visual Editor Screen
Note: You can also add a table when working inside the “Text” area of the WP editor …
TablePress Menu Icon In Text Editor Screen
Clicking on the menu icon displays a list of all your existing tables.
Select the table you want to embed into your content and click Insert Shortcode …
Your TablePress shortcode will be inserted into your content …
Your table and table contents 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 information after publishing the table without having to edit your post or page. Tweak the content in the plugin area, then save your 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 more data to an existing table, you can simply export your current table, then add new items, 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, click on TablePress > Export a Table in your admin 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, 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 resembling a webpage, 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” area. You can import multiple tables from a compressed (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 technical 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 powerful time saving plugin that is free and will help you easily create and insert tables into your site content.
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