Being able to provide visitors with tables on your content can be very useful. Tables help you sort and present data to visitors in a way that makes your information easier to understand.
WordPress offers a feature-rich visual editor, but there are some things that the default editor doesn’t let you do, such as letting you create tables without having to learn code.
Although you can create tables manually 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 just about anything you can imagine on a WordPress site with plugins, and creating tables is no exception.
In this tutorial you will learn how to easily create and insert tables into your site’s pages with no coding skills required.
How To Easily Create And Insert Tables Into Your Content
Follow the step-by-step tutorial below to learn how to add tables in WordPress using a FREE WordPress plugin called TablePress.
TablePress – WP Plugin
TablePress is a great WordPress plugin that makes creating, editing and managing tables in WordPress a very simple and easy process.
TablePress requires no knowledge or skills coding HTML, CSS, etc. It lets you easily edit your table data. You can add any type of data to your tables.
An additional JavaScript library can be used to include features like sorting, pagination, filtering, and more for site users. You can easily insert tables into your content 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 formats.
TablePress was developed by Tobias Bäthge and is licensed as Free Software under GNU General Public License 2 (GPL 2).
Using TablePress Plugin For WordPress – Tutorial
To create and manage tables in WordPress posts and pages, first install and activate the TablePress plugin.
Download the plugin here:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/tablepress
Or install it from your own WP Dashboard …
After the plugin has been installed and activated, a new menu item will appear on your Dashboard menu called TablePress …
Click on TablePress and select Plugin Options from the list of submenus …
The “Plugin Options” area controls your plugin styling and display settings …
For example, in the “User Options” section, you can modify where the TablePress menu entry appears on your Dashboard menu.
By default, the menu item appears somewhere around the middle of your menu column. If you plan to use this plugin a lot, then you can position the menu item near the top of your menu by specifying “Top-level (middle)” on the User Options > Admin menu entry dropdown menu …
The TablePress menu item will now display close to the top of the admin menu …
You can also specify other plugin options in the “Plugin Options” screen, such as table formatting styles, default language, and so on. If you don’t need to modify these settings, just leave the default options.
With TablePress, tables are created and modified within the plugin screen. Tables are then inserted via a shortcode into your posts. Your table will then display after publishing your content.
The benefit of doing this is that you can easily modify the data inside your tables without having to touch your pages. TablePress 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 …
Type in the name, an optional description, 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 your new table has been created, it will be added to the “All Tables” list and be assigned a unique Shortcode ID …
The TablePress shortcode lets you easily add tables anywhere in your content by simply typing or copying and pasting the shortcode wherever you want to display a table …
Once a new table has been created, adding content to the 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 …)
Once your new table is created, you will see additional options for configuring your table.
For example, in the “Table Options” area 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 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 modify your table content after it has been created in the “Table Manipulation” area. You can perform various table edits, like inserting images and links, hiding, showing, inserting, deleting and cloning selected rows and columns, adding new columns and rows, 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 post (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 in your screen displaying the table. Certain features such as the JavaScript options are disabled in preview mode, but will display once your post or page is published …
Remember to click the Save Changes button when finished to save your table data …
To view a list of all your tables TablePress > All Tables …
All the tables you have created are listed here. You can edit, see the shortcode, copy, export, delete and preview your tables …
Using The TablePress Shortcode To Insert Tables Into Your Pages And Blog Posts
You can insert a table inside any pages and blog posts using a shortcode.
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 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 the table to show then click the TablePress menu icon …
TablePress Menu Icon In WordPress Visual Editor Screen
Note: You can also add a table when working in the “Text” area of the WordPress editor …
TablePress Menu Icon In HTML Editor Screen
Clicking on the menu icon displays a list of all the available tables you have created.
Select the table you want to add to your post or page and click Insert Shortcode …
Your TablePress shortcode will be inserted …
Publish your post or page to display your table …
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 the new table settings and refresh your post 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 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 your WP admin 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 making changes and resaving the table file, you can then easily reimport your table into WordPress.
To import a table into WordPress from your hard drive, 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, 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” area. You can also import multiple tables from compressed (ZIP) files and choose whether to import tables as a new table or to replace an existing table.
To learn more about the plugin, including accessing the plugin documentation for extra features, or get technical 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 a very powerful and feature-rich plugin that is free and will help you easily create and add tables into your WordPress posts and pages.
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