The ability to easily add tables to 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.
WordPress offers a feature-rich visual editor, but there are some things that the default editor won’t do, such as letting you 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 many non-technical WordPress users, this is not a realistic option.
Fortunately, you can do just about anything you need done on a WordPress site with plugins, and adding tables is no exception.
In this tutorial you will learn how to create and insert tables easily into your content with no coding skills required.
Creating And Adding Tables With WordPress
If you want to create and add tables into your WordPress content without touching code, the step-by-step tutorial below will show you how to do this using a FREE plugin called TablePress.
TablePress
A powerful and time-saving 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 interface that lets you easily edit your table data. You can add any type of data, even formulas to tables.
An additional JavaScript library can be used to add features like pagination, sorting, filtering, and more for your visitors. You can include the tables into your content using shortcodes and even 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.
TablePress was developed 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 manage tables in WordPress using TablePress, first install and activate the TablePress plugin.
Download this plugin here:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/tablepress
Or install it from within your WordPress Dashboard …
After installing and activating the plugin, you will see a new menu item added to your WP admin menu called TablePress …
Click on TablePress and select Plugin Options from the submenu list …
The “Plugin Options” area 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 admin menu.
Normally, the menu item displays somewhere in the middle of your menu column. If you plan to use this plugin a lot, then you can easily position the menu option towards the top of your menu by selecting “Top-level (middle)” in the User Options > Admin menu entry dropdown menu …
The TablePress menu entry will now show at the top area of your admin menu …
You can also specify other settings in the “Plugin Options” tab, like formatting styles for your tables, default language, and so on. If you don’t need to change this section, just leave the default options.
With TablePress, you create edit and format tables inside the plugin area. Tables are then placed via a shortcode into your pages. The table will then display after republishing or saving your pages or posts.
The great thing about working directly from the plugin is that you can easily change the information in your tables without having to open any of your posts and pages. 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 name, a description (optional), and the number of rows and columns you want for the 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 any table you create at anytime…
Once the new table has been created, it will appear in the “All Tables” list and get assigned a unique Shortcode ID …
The TablePress shortcode allows you to easily add tables anywhere inside a post or page by simply inserting or copying and pasting the shortcode wherever you want to display your table …
Once a new table has been created, adding content to your table is really easy.
In the “Table Content” section, just click in the cell and either 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 …)
After your new table has been created, displays additional options for configuring your table.
For example, in the “Table Options” area 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 colors on consecutive rows, highlight rows when a visitor hovers 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 creating it in the “Table Manipulation” subsection. You can perform a range of table operations, such as inserting 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 your site users to sort, filter and search your table content, change the number of table rows showing on your site (and let users change 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 displaying the 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 data …
After you have created one or more tables, you can view a list of all your tables by going to TablePress > All Tables …
All your tables are displayed in this section. You can edit, see the shortcode, copy, export, delete and preview tables …
How To Use The Shortcode To Insert Tables Into Your Posts And Pages
You embed a table inside any pages and posts with the TablePress shortcode.
You can get the shortcode for your tables by clicking on the Show Shortcode menu item below 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 mouse cursor where you want the table to be embedded 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 editor …
TablePress Menu Icon In Text Editor Screen
Clicking on the menu icon displays a list of all your available tables.
Select the table you want to add to the content and click Insert Shortcode …
Your TablePress shortcode will be added …
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 data after publishing the table without having to open your post or page. Tweak the content in the plugin area, then save the new table settings and refresh your page 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, just 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, click on TablePress > Export a Table in the main menu …
In the “Export Tables” section, select the table(s) you would like 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 your table file, you can then reimport your table into WordPress.
To import a table into WordPress from your hard drive, go to the Dashboard menu and choose 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 compressed (ZIP) files and select whether to import a table as a new table or to replace an existing table.
To learn more about TablePress, including accessing 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 time saving free plugin will help you easily create and embed tables into your site content.
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