The ability to easily add tables to your content can be very useful. Tables help you sort and present data to people 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 won’t do, such as giving you the option to easily create tables.
Although you can create tables manually in WordPress if you have knowledge of HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), for many non-technical WordPress users, this is not a realistic option.
Fortunately, WordPress plugins let you do almost anything you can imagine, and inserting tables into your content is no exception.
In this step-by-step 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 Add Tables Into WordPress Without Touching Code
To add tables into your WordPress content with no HTML or CSS knowledge required, we’ll use a FREE plugin called TablePress.
TablePress – WordPress Plugin
A very powerful and time-saving plugin for creating, editing and managing tables in WordPress is TablePress.
TablePress does not require you to have any knowledge or skills coding HTML, CSS, etc. The plugin provides a simple interface that allows you to easily edit your table data. You can add any type of data, even formulas to tables.
An additional JavaScript library can be used to include features like pagination, sorting, filtering, and more for site users. You can easily include the tables into your page content using shortcodes and display tables using text widgets.
You can also import and export tables from/to CSV files (e.g. from Excel), HTML files, and JSON formats.
The plugin was created by Tobias Bäthge and is licensed as Free Software under GNU General Public License 2 (GPL 2).
How To Use TablePress Plugin For WP – Step-By-Step Tutorial
To create and manage tables in WordPress with TablePress, first install and activate the TablePress plugin.
You can download this plugin here:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/tablepress
Or install it directly from within your own WordPress Dashboard …
Once the plugin has been installed and activated, a new menu item will appear on your Dashboard menu called TablePress …
Click on TablePress and choose Plugin Options from the list of submenus …
The “Plugin Options” screen controls your plugin styling and display settings …
For example, in the “User Options” section, you can change the position of the TablePress menu entry in your Dashboard menu.
By default, the menu item displays around the middle of your menu column. If you plan to use this plugin a lot, then you can easily position the menu item towards the top of the Dashboard menu by choosing “Top-level (middle)” on the User Options > Admin menu entry dropdown menu …
The TablePress menu entry will now display towards the top section of the admin menu …
You can also play with other settings in the “Plugin Options” screen, such as table formatting styles, default language, and so on. Leave the settings as they are if you don’t need to change things in this area.
With TablePress, tables are created and edited inside the plugin screen. Tables are then inserted via a shortcode into your content. Your table will then display after publishing your pages or posts.
The great thing about working directly from the plugin is that you can easily update the information inside your tables without having to manually edit your pages. The plugin then updates all of your table information in all instances 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 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 tables 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 simply by inserting or copying and pasting the shortcode wherever you want your tables to be displayed …
Once a new table has been created, adding content to your table is really easy.
In the “Table Content” section, click in the cell and type or paste your content. You can add text, images and HTML formatting to your content (e.g. add bold text, insert links, etc …)
Once your new table is created, the plugin will display a number of additional options that will allow you to configure 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 colours on consecutive rows, highlight a row 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 after it has been created in the “Table Manipulation” area. You can perform a range of different table operations, such as adding links and 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 posts (and also allow users to change 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 screen allowing you to preview your table. Certain features such as the JavaScript options are disabled in preview mode, but will display when your post or page is published …
Click the Save Changes button when finished to update your new table information …
After you have created one or more tables, you can view a list of all your tables by choosing TablePress > All Tables …
A list of all your tables will be displayed in this screen. You can edit, see the shortcode, copy, export, delete and preview your tables …
Using The TablePress Shortcode To Embed Tables Into Your Pages And Blog Posts
You embed tables into content using a shortcode.
You can get the shortcode for your tables by clicking on the Show Shortcode menu item under your 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 appear 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 editor …
TablePress Menu Icon In WordPress HTML Editor Screen
Clicking on the menu icon displays a list of all your available tables.
Select the table you want to embed into the content and click Insert Shortcode …
Your TablePress shortcode will be placed in the location you specified …
Publish the post or page to display the table contents …
As stated earlier, one of the great things about this plugin is that you can edit the contents of your table after publishing the table without having to open your post or page. Edit the content in the plugin area, then save your new table settings and refresh your post to view the updated information.
Another great time-saving feature of this plugin, is that if you plan to keep adding new data to an existing table, just export your current table, then add new data, 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 an existing table, select TablePress > Export a Table in the admin menu …
In the “Export Tables” section, choose 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 the table file, you can then re-import your table into WordPress.
To import a table into WordPress from your hard drive, go to your menu and 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 import multiple tables from a compressed (ZIP) file and select whether to import tables as a new table or replace an existing table.
To learn more about the plugin, including accessing documentation about additional features, 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 a very useful and feature-rich plugin that is free and will help you easily create and embed tables into your page content.
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"This is an awesome training series. I have a pretty good understanding of WordPress already, but this is helping me to move somewhere from intermediate to advanced user!" - Kim Lednum