The ability to easily add tables to your content can be very useful. Tables are great for sorting and presenting data to people in a format that can make your information easier to understand.
WordPress offers a feature-rich visual editor, but there are some things that the default editor doesn’t do, like being able 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 many non-technical users, this is 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 tutorial you will learn how to easily create and add tables into your WordPress posts and pages with no coding skills required.
How To Create And Insert Tables With WordPress
If you want to create and add tables into your WordPress content without touching code, 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
TablePress is a great WordPress plugin for creating, editing and managing tables in WordPress.
TablePress requires no knowledge of HTML, CSS, etc. It lets you easily edit your table data. You can add any type of data, even formulas to your tables.
An additional JavaScript library can be used to add features like pagination, sorting, filtering, and more for visitors. You can easily include the tables into your page content using shortcodes and even display these inside text widgets.
You can also import and export a table from/to CSV files (e.g. from Excel), HTML files, and JSON formats.
TablePress was created 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 manage tables in WordPress posts or pages, install and activate the TablePress plugin.
Download this plugin here:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/tablepress
Or install it directly from your WordPress Dashboard …
Once the plugin has been installed and activated, you will see a new menu item in your admin menu called TablePress …
Click on TablePress and choose Plugin Options from the submenu list …
The “Plugin Options” area affects the plugin’s behavior in different areas of your site …
For example, in the “User Options” section, you can modify where the TablePress menu entry appears on your WP admin menu.
Normally, the menu entry displays somewhere in the middle of your menu bar. If you plan to use this plugin often, then you can easily position the menu item closer to the top of your menu by specifying “Top-level (middle)” in the User Options > Admin menu entry dropdown menu …
The TablePress menu entry now displays closer to the top section of the menu …
You can also play with other settings in the “Plugin Options” area, such as table formatting styles, default language, and so on. If you don’t need to modify this section, then just leave the options as the default.
With TablePress, you create and edit your tables within the plugin screen. Tables are then placed via a shortcode into your pages and posts. The table will then display when publishing or updating your page.
The great thing about doing this is that you can easily update the data inside your tables without having to touch your posts and pages. TablePress then updates all of your table information inside all posts and pages where the table has been added to your content.
To add a new table select TablePress > Add New Table …
Type in a table 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, 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 your new table has been created, it will display in the “All Tables” list and be assigned a unique Shortcode ID …
The TablePress shortcode allows you to easily insert tables anywhere in your content simply by inserting or copying and pasting the shortcode wherever you want to display your table …
Once a new table has been created, adding content to the table is very easy.
In the “Table Content” section, click in the cell and either 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 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 and the last row of the table to be the table footer, display alternate background colours on consecutive rows, 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” section. You can perform various table operations, like adding links or images, hiding, showing, inserting, deleting and duplicating 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, set the number of table rows displayed on your site (and also allow visitors to 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 displaying your table. Certain features like 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 save your new table information …
Once you have created one or more tables, you can view a list of all your tables by going to TablePress > All Tables …
All the tables you have created are displayed in a list. You can edit, see the shortcode, copy, delete, export and preview your tables …
How To Use The TablePress Shortcode
You embed a table inside any content with a shortcode.
Click on the Show Shortcode menu item under the 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 appear then click the TablePress menu icon …
TablePress Menu Icon In WordPress Visual Editor Screen
Note: You can also insert a table when working inside the “Text” area of the editor …
TablePress Menu Icon In HTML Editor Screen
Clicking on the menu icon brings up a list of all tables.
Select the table you want to embed in the post or page and click Insert Shortcode …
Your TablePress shortcode will be inserted into your content …
Publish the post or page to display the table and table contents …
As stated earlier, one of the great things about TablePress is that you can change data after publishing the table without having to edit your post or page. Change the content in the plugin area, then save the new table settings and refresh your content 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 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 an existing table, click on TablePress > Export a Table in your main menu …
In the “Export Tables” section, select the table(s) you want 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 changing and resaving your file, you can then re-import the table into WordPress.
To import a table into WordPress from your hard drive, go to the sidebar 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 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” section. You can import multiple tables from a compressed (ZIP) file and select whether to import a table as a new table or write over an existing table.
To learn more about using the plugin, including accessing the plugin documentation for additional features, get plugin 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 an extremely powerful and feature-rich plugin that is free and will help you easily create and embed tables into your site content.
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