Being able to provide visitors with tables on your website can be very useful. Tables help you sort and present data to people in a way that makes your information easier to understand.
WordPress provides users with a great visual editor, 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 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 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 content without requiring knowledge of HTML or CSS or coding skills.
Creating And Adding Tables To WordPress Posts And Pages
If you want to add tables to your WordPress posts or pages with no coding skills required, the tutorial below will show you how to add tables into your WordPress posts and pages using a FREE WordPress plugin called TablePress.
TablePress – WordPress Plugin
TablePress is a great plugin for creating, editing and managing tables in WordPress.
TablePress requires no knowledge of HTML, CSS, etc. The plugin lets you easily edit your table data. Tables can contain any kind of data, even formulas.
An additional JavaScript library can be used to add features like pagination, sorting, filtering, and more for site users. You can easily include the tables into your content using shortcodes and even 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.
This plugin was developed by Tobias Bäthge and is licensed as Free Software under GNU General Public License 2 (GPL 2).
How To Use TablePress – Step-By-Step Tutorial
To create and add tables to WordPress posts or pages, install and activate the TablePress plugin.
You can download this plugin here:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/tablepress
Or install it directly from your own Dashboard …
Once you have installed and activated the plugin, a new menu item will display on your WordPress admin menu called TablePress …
Click on TablePress and choose Plugin Options from the list of submenus …
The “Plugin Options” screen affects the plugin’s styling and display settings …
For example, in the “User Options” section, you can specify where the TablePress menu entry appears on your WP admin menu.
By default, the menu entry appears somewhere in the middle of your menu. If you plan to use this plugin often, then you can easily position the menu option towards the top of the Dashboard menu by choosing “Top-level (middle)” in the User Options > Admin menu entry dropdown menu …
The TablePress menu entry now appears closer to the top area of your menu …
You can also play with other settings in the “Plugin Options” section, 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, you create and edit tables inside the plugin section. Tables are then added via a shortcode into your content. The table will then display or update when your content is republished.
The benefit of working directly from the plugin is that you can easily update the data in your tables without having to open any of your posts. TablePress then updates all of your table data inside all posts and pages where the table has been added to your content.
To add a new table select TablePress > Add New Table …
Enter the table 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 any tables you create at anytime…
Once your new table is created, it will appear in the “All Tables” list and get assigned a unique Shortcode ID …
The TablePress shortcode allows you to easily insert tables anywhere inside a post or page simply by inserting or copying and pasting the shortcode wherever you want your tables to display …
Once a new table has been created, adding content to your table is easy.
In the “Table Content” section, click in 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. add bold text, insert links, etc …)
After your new table has been created, additional options appear that let you configure 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 colour, 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 edit your table information after creating it in the “Table Manipulation” section. You can add images or links, hide, show, insert, delete and clone selected columns and rows, add new columns and rows, combine cells, etc …
You can also enable JavaScript library features in your tables, such as allowing visitors to sort, filter and search your table content, set the number of table rows showing on your page (and let users 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 on your browser 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 after you are done editing to save your new table data …
After you have created one or more tables, you can view a list of all your tables by going to TablePress > All Tables …
All your tables are listed here. You can edit, see shortcodes, copy, delete, export and preview your tables …
Using The Shortcode
You can insert a table into any content 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 the table to be embedded then click the TablePress menu icon …
TablePress Menu Icon In Visual Editor Screen
Note: You can also add a table when working in the “Text” area of the WP editor …
TablePress Menu Icon In WordPress Text Editor Screen
Clicking on the menu icon opens a window containing a list of all your available tables.
Select the table you want to embed into the post or page and click Insert Shortcode …
Your TablePress shortcode will be inserted into your content …
Publish the post or page to display your table contents …
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 open your post or page. Edit 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 this plugin, is that if you plan to keep adding new data to an existing table, you can simply 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, select TablePress > Export a Table in your admin menu …
In the “Export Tables” section, select the table(s) you want 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 file to your hard drive …
After editing and resaving your file, you can then re-import 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 (e.g. Excel), an HTML file resembling a webpage, or its own format.
To import a table, select and enter the import source in the “Import Tables” area. You can import multiple tables from ZIP files and select whether to import a table as a new table or write over an existing table.
For more information about the plugin, including accessing the plugin documentation for extra features, or get technical support for the plugin, 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 free plugin will help you easily create and add tables into your site content.
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