Being able to provide visitors with tables on your website can be very useful. Tables help you sort and present data to visitors in a way that makes your information easier to understand.
WordPress provides users with a feature-rich visual editor, but there are some things that it won’t do by default, 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 most non-technical users, this is simply not a realistic option.
Fortunately, you can do almost anything you need done on a WordPress site with plugins, and inserting tables into your content is no exception.
In this tutorial you will learn how to easily create and insert tables into your posts and pages with no coding skills required.
Creating And Adding Tables Into Your Content Easily In WordPress
If you want to add tables to your WordPress posts or pages without touching code, then the step-by-step tutorial below will show you how to easily add tables into your WordPress posts and pages using a FREE plugin called TablePress.
TablePress
TablePress is a very powerful and time-saving plugin for creating, editing and managing tables in WordPress.
TablePress doesn’t require you to have any knowledge or skills coding HTML, CSS, etc. It provides a simple interface that allows you to easily edit your table data. Tables can contain any type of data, even formulas.
An additional JavaScript library can be used to include features like sorting, pagination, filtering, and more for your site visitors. You can include the tables into your pages and blog posts using shortcodes and even display tables inside text widgets.
A table can also be imported and exported from/to CSV files (e.g. from Excel), HTML files, and JSON formats.
TablePress was written and developed by Tobias Bäthge and is licensed as Free Software under GNU General Public License 2 (GPL 2).
Using TablePress Plugin For WP – Tutorial
To create and add tables to WordPress, install and activate the TablePress plugin.
You can download the plugin here:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/tablepress
Or install it from your WordPress Dashboard …
After the plugin has been installed and activated, a new menu item will display on your main menu called TablePress …
Click on TablePress and choose Plugin Options from the list of submenus …
The “Plugin Options” section controls your plugin styling and display settings …
For example, in the “User Options” section, you can specify the position of the TablePress menu entry in your Dashboard menu.
Normally, the menu item displays somewhere around the middle of your menu bar. If you plan to use this plugin often, then you can position the menu item towards the top of the admin menu by selecting “Top-level (middle)” on the User Options > Admin menu entry dropdown menu …
The TablePress menu item will now appear close to the top area of the menu list …
You can also specify other settings in the “Plugin Options” area, such as formatting styles for your tables, default language, etc. If you don’t need to change this section, simply leave the default options.
With TablePress, you create and edit your tables inside the plugin section. Tables are then placed via a shortcode into your posts. The tables will then display or update when saving your pages or posts.
The benefit of doing this is that you can easily update the data inside your tables without having to manually edit your posts and pages. The plugin then updates all of your table data in all locations where the table has been added to your content.
To create a new table select TablePress > Add New Table …
Enter a 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 edit the name, description and size of your table at anytime…
Once your new table has been created, it will appear in the “All Tables” list and be assigned a unique Shortcode ID …
The TablePress shortcode lets you easily insert tables anywhere inside a post or page simply by inserting or copying and pasting the shortcode wherever you want your tables to be displayed …
Once you have created a new table, 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. add bold text, insert hyperlinks, etc …)
After your new table has been created, you will see additional options for configuring your table.
For example, in the “Table Options” section you can select the first row of your table to be the table header or the last row of the table to be the table footer, display alternate background colors on consecutive rows, highlight a row when visitors hover their mouse over the table, display the table name and description above or below the table, and more …
You can also edit your table after it has been created in the “Table Manipulation” subsection. You can perform various table operations, like adding links and images, hiding, showing, inserting, deleting and duplicating selected rows and columns, adding new rows and columns, combining 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, set the number of table rows displayed on your posts (and also allow users to specify 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 on your web browser allowing you to preview the table. Certain features such as the JavaScript options are disabled in preview mode, but will display once your table is published …
Click the Save Changes button when finished to save your new table information …
To view a list of all the tables you have created choose TablePress > All Tables …
A list of all your tables will be displayed in this area. You can edit, see the shortcode, copy, export, delete and preview tables …
How To Use The TablePress Shortcode To Embed Tables Into Your Posts And Pages
You can embed a table into content using the TablePress shortcode.
Get the shortcode for your tables by clicking on the Show Shortcode menu item under the 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 the 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 WP editor …
TablePress Menu Icon In Text Editor Screen
Clicking on the menu icon brings up a list of all existing tables.
Select the table you want to embed in the content and click Insert Shortcode …
Your TablePress shortcode will be placed in the location you specified …
Publish your post or page to view the table contents …
As stated earlier, one of the great things about this plugin is that you can edit information after publishing the table without having to open your post or page. Just tweak the content in the plugin area, then save your 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 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 a table, select TablePress > Export a Table in your main menu …
In the “Export Tables” section, choose 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 editing and resaving your table file, you can then reimport your 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, an HTML file resembling a webpage, or its own JSON format. You can also import existing tables from the WP-Table Reloaded plugin
To import a table, select and enter the source in the “Import Tables” section. You can also import multiple tables from a compressed (ZIP) file and choose whether to import tables as a new table or write over an existing table.
For more information about TablePress, including where to access documentation about extra 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 quite a powerful and feature-rich free plugin will help you easily create and insert tables into your page content.
***
"Wow! I never knew there's so much to learn about WordPress! I bought one of the WordPress for Dummies three years ago, such authors need to be on this course!" - Rich Law, Create A Blog Now