The ability to easily add tables to your content can be really handy. Tables are great for sorting and presenting data to people 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 won’t do, like being able to 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, you can do just about anything you need done on a WordPress site with plugins, and creating tables is no exception.
In this tutorial you will learn how to easily create and add tables into your site’s pages with no coding skills required.
How To Add Tables In WordPress Posts And Pages
If you want to create and add tables to your WordPress posts or pages without touching code, the tutorial below will show you how to 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 does not require you to have any knowledge or skills coding HTML, CSS, etc. It lets you easily edit table data. You can add any kind of data, even formulas to tables.
An additional JavaScript library can be used to include features like sorting, pagination, filtering, and more for visitors. You can easily insert tables into your pages and blog posts using shortcodes and 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.
The plugin was developed by Tobias Bäthge and is licensed as Free Software under GNU General Public License 2 (GPL 2).
How To Use TablePress WP Plugin – Step-By-Step Tutorial
To create and manage tables in WordPress posts or pages, install and activate the TablePress plugin.
Download the plugin here:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/tablepress
Or install it directly from within your WP Dashboard …
Once you have installed and activated the plugin, you will see a new menu item in your Dashboard menu called TablePress …
Click on TablePress and select 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 modify the position of the TablePress menu entry in your Dashboard menu.
Normally, the menu item appears somewhere around the middle of your menu column. If you plan to use this plugin a lot, then you can easily position the menu item near the top of your admin menu by choosing “Top-level (middle)” in the User Options > Admin menu entry dropdown menu …
The TablePress menu item now shows close to the top section of your menu …
You can also specify other options in the “Plugin Options” tab, such as table formatting styles, default language, and so on. If you don’t need to change these settings, then just leave the options as the default.
With TablePress, you create and edit tables within the plugin screen. Tables are then added via a shortcode into your pages and posts. Your tables will then display or update after publishing your page.
The benefit of working directly from the plugin is that you can easily update the information in your tables without having to manually edit your pages. TablePress then updates all of your table information everywhere where the table has been added to your content.
To create a new table select TablePress > Add New Table …
Enter a table 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 tables you create at anytime…
Once the new table has been created, it will be added to the “All Tables” list and get 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 your table …
Once you have created a new table, adding content to it is 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, additional options appear that let you configure 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 colours on consecutive rows, highlight a row when visitors hover their mouse over the table, print the table name and description above or below the table, and more …
You can also modify your table after it has been created in the “Table Manipulation” area. You can perform a range of different operations on your table, like inserting links and 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, set the number of table rows showing on your site (and let visitors 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 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 …
Remember to click the Save Changes button when finished to save your table data …
After you have created one or more tables, you can view a list of all your tables by selecting TablePress > All Tables …
Your tables are listed here. You can edit, see shortcodes, copy, export, delete and preview tables …
How To Use The TablePress Shortcode
You can insert tables inside any posts and pages with the TablePress shortcode.
Click on the Show Shortcode menu item below your table title to get the shortcode …
The plugin also adds a menu item 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 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 WordPress editor …
TablePress Menu Icon In HTML Editor Screen
Clicking on the menu icon opens a window containing a list of all your existing tables.
Select the table you want to embed in the content and click Insert Shortcode …
Your TablePress shortcode will be added …
Publish the post or page to view the table …
As stated earlier, one of the great things about this plugin is that you can edit things 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 post to view the updated content.
Another great time-saving feature of the TablePress plugin, is that if you plan to keep adding new 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 a table, select TablePress > Export a Table in your main menu …
In the “Export Tables” section, select the table(s) 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 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, 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 import source in the “Import Tables” area. You can also import multiple tables from a ZIP file and select whether to import tables as a new table or to replace an existing table.
To learn more about the plugin, including accessing documentation about additional features, or get technical support for the plugin, 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 useful time saving plugin that is free and will help you easily create and add tables into your WordPress posts and pages.
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"These tutorials have so much information and are easy to understand. If you use WordPress or plan to in the future these will help you with everything you need to know." - Valisa (Mesa, Arizona)