Being able to provide visitors with tables on your pages can be very useful. Tables help you sort and present data to visitors in a way that makes your information easier to understand.
WordPress offers a great visual editor, but there are some things that the default editor won’t do, such as letting you 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 many non-technical WordPress users, this is simply not a feasible option.
Fortunately, you can do almost anything you can imagine on a WordPress site with plugins, and creating tables is no exception.
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn how to easily create and add tables into your posts and pages without requiring knowledge of HTML or CSS or coding skills.
Inserting Tables Into Posts And Pages In WordPress
If you want to add tables to your WordPress posts or pages with no coding skills required, then the tutorial below will show you how to add tables into your WordPress posts and pages using a FREE WordPress plugin called TablePress.
TablePress – WP Plugin
A very powerful and time-saving plugin that makes creating, editing and managing tables in your WordPress posts and pages simple and easy is TablePress.
TablePress does not require you to have any knowledge of HTML, CSS, etc. It lets you easily edit 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 visitors. You can include the tables into your posts and pages using shortcodes and even display these using text widgets.
You can also import and export a table from/to CSV files (e.g. from Excel), HTML files, and JSON formats.
This plugin was created by Tobias Bäthge and is licensed as Free Software under GNU General Public License 2 (GPL 2).
How To Use TablePress WordPress Plugin – Step-By-Step Tutorial
To create and add tables to WordPress posts and pages, install and activate the TablePress plugin.
You can download the plugin here:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/tablepress
Or install it from within your own Dashboard …
After the plugin has been installed and activated, a new menu item will appear on your WP admin menu called TablePress …
Click on TablePress and select 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.
Normally, the menu item appears somewhere in the middle of your menu column. If you plan to use this plugin often, then you can easily position the menu item towards the top of the admin menu by selecting “Top-level (middle)” on the User Options > Admin menu entry dropdown menu …
The TablePress menu item now displays at the top area of your menu list …
You can also specify other settings in the “Plugin Options” screen, like formatting styles for your tables, default language, etc. If you don’t need to modify these settings, then just leave the default options.
With TablePress, tables are created and edited inside the plugin section. Tables are then added via a shortcode into your pages and posts. Your table will then display when your content is republished.
The benefit of doing this is that you can easily update the data inside your tables without having to manually edit your pages. TablePress then updates all of your table information in all locations where the table has been added to your content.
To create a new table select TablePress > Add New Table …
Type in the table name, an optional description, and the number of rows and columns you would like for the 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 change the name, description and size of any tables you create at anytime…
Once your 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 insert tables anywhere inside a post or page by simply typing or copying and pasting the shortcode wherever you want your tables to display …
Once you have created a new table, adding content to it is easy.
In the “Table Content” section, click inside the cell and either type or paste your content. You can add text, images and HTML formatting to your content (e.g. add bold text, insert hyperlinks, etc …)
Once your new table is created, displays a number of additional options that will allow you to 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, make the background of consecutive rows alternate in color, highlight rows when visitors hover their mouse over the table, display 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” subsection. You can add images or links, hide, show, insert, delete and duplicate 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 your site users to sort, filter and search your table content, set the number of table rows showing on your site (and also allow users to change the number of rows displayed), display table information, etc …
You can see how your table looks anytime, by clicking the Preview button …
A preview window will open in your screen allowing you to preview the table. Certain features such as the JavaScript options are disabled in preview mode, but will display once your table is published …
Remember to click the Save Changes button after you are done editing to save your 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 …
Your tables are listed here. You can edit, see shortcodes, copy, delete, export and preview tables …
Using The TablePress Shortcode
You embed a table into page content using a shortcode.
You can get the shortcode for your tables by clicking on the Show Shortcode menu item below 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 your 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 WordPress editor …
TablePress Menu Icon In Text Editor Screen
Clicking on the menu icon opens a window containing a list of all tables.
Select the table you want to embed in the content and click Insert Shortcode …
Your TablePress shortcode will be inserted …
Publish your post or page to view your table …
As stated earlier, one of the great things about TablePress is that you can change information after publishing the table without having to edit your post or page. Edit the content in the plugin area, then save the new table settings and refresh your page 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 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 an existing table, select TablePress > Export a Table in the WP 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 re-import your table into WordPress.
To import a table, go to your Dashboard 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, or its own JSON format.
To import a table, select and enter the import source in the “Import Tables” section. You can import multiple tables from ZIP files and select whether to import a table as a new table or replace an existing table.
For more information about using the plugin, including where to access documentation about extra features, or get technical support, 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 time saving plugin that is free and will help you easily create and embed tables into your page content.
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