Being able to provide visitors with tables on your content can be very useful. Tables help you sort and present data to people in a format that can make your information easier to understand.
WordPress provides users with a great visual editor, but there are some things that it doesn’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 many non-technical WordPress users, this is not a practical option.
Fortunately, WordPress plugins give users almost unlimited expansion capabilities, and adding tables to your content is no exception.
In this tutorial you will learn how to create and insert tables easily into your pages and blog posts with no coding skills required.
How To Easily Create And Add Tables In Your Content Without Touching Code
Follow the tutorial below to learn how to add tables in WordPress using a FREE plugin called TablePress.
TablePress
A powerful and time-saving WordPress plugin that makes creating, editing and managing tables in WordPress a very simple and easy process is TablePress.
TablePress does not 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. Your tables can contain any type of data, even formulas.
An additional JavaScript library can be used to add features like sorting, pagination, filtering, and more for your site visitors. You can easily insert tables into your posts and pages using shortcodes and even display these inside text widgets.
A table can also be imported and exported from/to CSV files (e.g. from Excel), HTML files, and JSON.
The plugin was written and developed by Tobias Bäthge and is licensed as Free Software under GNU General Public License 2 (GPL 2).
How To Use TablePress – Tutorial
To create and add tables to WordPress with TablePress, install and activate the TablePress plugin.
You can download this plugin here:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/tablepress
Or install it directly from within your WordPress Dashboard …
Once the plugin has been installed and activated, you will see a new menu item on your main menu called TablePress …
Click on TablePress and select Plugin Options from the submenu list …
The “Plugin Options” area affects the plugin’s 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 in the middle of your menu bar. If you plan to use this plugin a lot, then you can position the menu item near 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 show near the top area of your menu …
You can also play with other plugin options in the “Plugin Options” section, like 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 formatted inside the plugin area. Tables are then added via a shortcode into your pages. Your table will then display or update when your post or page is published or updated.
The great thing about working directly from the plugin is that you can easily update the information in your tables without having to touch your pages and posts. TablePress 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 …
Enter a 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 your table at anytime…
Once your new table has been created, it will get 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 your tables to display …
Once a new table has been created, adding content to the table is 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 hyperlinks, etc …)
Once your new table is created, additional options appear that let you configure your table.
For example, in the “Table Options” area 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 colour, highlight rows when visitors hover their mouse over the table, print 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 various edits on your table, like adding links and images, hiding, showing, inserting, deleting and duplicating 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 visitors to sort, filter and search your table content, change the number of table rows displayed on your content (and also allow users to 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 displaying 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 after you are done editing to save your new table information …
Once you have created one or more tables, you can view a list of all your tables by clicking on TablePress > All Tables …
A list of all your tables will be displayed in this section. You can edit, see shortcodes, copy, export, delete and preview your tables …
Using The Shortcode To Insert Tables Into Your Posts And Pages
You embed a table into your posts and pages using a shortcode.
Click on the Show Shortcode menu item under your table title to get the shortcode …
The plugin also adds a menu item 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 the 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 inside the “Text” area of the WordPress editor …
TablePress Menu Icon In WordPress HTML Editor Screen
Clicking on the menu icon opens a window containing a list of all your available tables.
Select the table you want to add to the post or page and click Insert Shortcode …
Your TablePress shortcode will be added to your content …
Your table and 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 the contents of your table after publishing the table without having to edit your post or page. Change the content in the plugin area, then save your new table settings and refresh your content 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 exported file with the news changes and your table content will be automatically updated throughout your site.
To export a table, click on TablePress > Export a Table in the admin 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 table file to your hard drive …
After making changes and resaving the table file, you can then easily reimport the 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 (e.g. Excel), an HTML file resembling a webpage, or its own 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 a compressed (ZIP) file and select whether to import tables as a new table or write over an existing table.
To learn more about using TablePress, including where to access documentation about additional 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 an extremely useful 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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"This is AMAZING! I had learnt about how to use WordPress previously, but this covers absolutely everything and more!! Incredible value! Thank you!" - Monique, Warrior Forum