Being able to display tables on 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 doesn’t let you do, like being able to create tables without having to learn code.
Although you can add tables manually to your content in WordPress if you have knowledge of HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), for many non-technical users, this is 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 create and add tables easily into your pages and blog posts with no coding skills required.
How To Easily Create And Add Tables To WordPress Pages And Posts
To create and add tables to your WordPress posts or pages without touching code, we’ll use a FREE plugin called TablePress.
TablePress – WordPress Plugin
A powerful and time-saving plugin for creating, editing and managing tables in WordPress is TablePress.
TablePress doesn’t require you to have any knowledge or skills coding HTML, CSS, etc. The plugin provides a simple interface that lets you easily edit your table data. You can add any kind of data, even formulas to tables.
An additional JavaScript library can be used to include features like pagination, sorting, filtering, and more for your site visitors. You can insert tables into your post content 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.
TablePress was developed by Tobias Bäthge and is licensed as Free Software under GNU General Public License 2 (GPL 2).
How To Use TablePress Plugin For WordPress – Tutorial
To create and add tables to WordPress using TablePress, install and activate the TablePress plugin.
Download the plugin here:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/tablepress
Or install it from within your Dashboard …
Once you have installed and activated the plugin, a new menu item will get added to your admin menu called TablePress …
Click on TablePress and choose 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 change the position of the TablePress menu entry in your admin menu.
Normally, the menu item displays somewhere near the middle of your menu column. If you plan to use this plugin often, then you can easily position the menu item near the top of your admin menu by selecting “Top-level (middle)” in the User Options > Admin menu entry dropdown menu …
The TablePress menu entry will now appear towards the top area of your menu …
You can also specify other settings in the “Plugin Options” area, like formatting styles for your tables, default language, and so on. Leave the default options as they are if you don’t need to change things in this section.
With TablePress, you create and edit your tables within the plugin section. Tables are then inserted via a shortcode into your pages and posts. The table will then display when publishing or updating your page.
The great thing about working directly from the plugin is that you can easily update the information in your tables without having to manually edit your pages and posts. The plugin then updates all of your table data everywhere where the table has been added to your content.
To create a new table select TablePress > Add New Table …
Enter the 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, and 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 is created, it will get added to the “All Tables” list and get assigned a unique Shortcode ID …
The TablePress shortcode allows you to easily add tables anywhere in your content by simply inserting or copying and pasting the shortcode wherever you want your tables to display …
Once you have created a new table, adding content to your table is really easy.
In the “Table Content” section, click inside the cell and 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 links, etc …)
After your new table has been created, the plugin also displays additional options for configuring your table.
For example, in the “Table Options” section you can specify the first row of your table to be the table header or the last row of the table to be the table footer, make the background of consecutive rows alternate in color, 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 modify your table after it has been created in the “Table Manipulation” subsection. You can add links or images, hide, show, insert, delete and duplicate selected rows and columns, add new columns and rows, combine 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 showing on your posts (and also allow visitors 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 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 after you are done editing to update your new table information …
Once you have created one or more tables, you can view a list of all your tables by selecting TablePress > All Tables …
A list of all the tables you have created will be displayed in this section. You can edit, see the shortcode, copy, delete, export and preview tables …
How To Use The Shortcode
You can embed tables inside content using a shortcode.
Click 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 editor. This allows you to easily insert tables into your posts and pages while working on your content.
Place your cursor where you want your table to be embedded 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 WordPress editor …
TablePress Menu Icon In WordPress HTML Editor Screen
Clicking on the menu icon brings up a list of your tables.
Select the table you want to embed into your content and click Insert Shortcode …
Your TablePress shortcode will be inserted …
The 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 edit 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 information.
Another great time-saving feature of the TablePress plugin, is that if you plan to keep adding more data to an existing table, you can simply export your current table, then add new items, 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 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 table file to your hard drive …
After changing and resaving your file, you can then easily re-import your table into WordPress.
To import a table into WordPress, go to your admin menu and choose 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 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 a ZIP file and choose whether to import tables as a new table or to replace an existing table.
For more information about the plugin, including accessing documentation about 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 a very useful time saving free plugin will help you easily create and add tables into your WordPress posts and pages.
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