The ability to easily add tables to your pages can be very useful. Tables help you sort and present data to visitors 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 won’t let you do, such as giving you the option to 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 simply not a realistic option.
Fortunately, WordPress plugins let you do almost anything you can imagine, and adding tables is no exception.
In this tutorial you will learn how to create and insert tables easily into your pages and blog posts without requiring knowledge of HTML or CSS or coding skills.
How To Easily Create And Add Tables To Your Content
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 do this using a FREE plugin called TablePress.
WordPress Plugin – TablePress
TablePress is a powerful and time-saving plugin that makes creating, editing and managing tables in WordPress simple and easy.
TablePress requires no knowledge of 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 your tables.
An additional JavaScript library can be used to include features like sorting, pagination, filtering, and more for your site visitors. You can include the tables into your content using shortcodes and display these using text widgets.
Tables 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).
Using TablePress – 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, you will see a new menu item on your Dashboard menu called TablePress …
Click on TablePress and choose Plugin Options from the submenu list …
The “Plugin Options” section 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 entry displays somewhere in the middle of your menu. If you plan to use this plugin often, then you can easily position the menu option closer to the top of your Dashboard menu by choosing “Top-level (middle)” on the User Options > Admin menu entry dropdown menu …
The TablePress menu item will now display near the top of the menu list …
You can also specify other plugin options in the “Plugin Options” screen, like formatting styles for your tables, default language, and so on. If you don’t need to change this section, then just leave the default options.
With TablePress, you create and edit your tables within the plugin area. Tables are then added via a shortcode into your content. The tables will then display when republishing or saving your content.
The benefit of doing this is that you can easily update the data inside your tables without having to manually edit your posts. TablePress then updates all of your table information everywhere where the table has been added to your content.
To add a new table select TablePress > Add New Table …
Type in the 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, and 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 the new table is created, it will be added to the “All Tables” list and be 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 be displayed …
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 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, additional options appear that let you configure your table.
For example, in the “Table Options” section you can select the first row of your table to be the table header or the last row of the table to be the table footer, display alternate background colours on consecutive rows, highlight rows when a visitor hovers their mouse over the table, print the table name and description above or below the table, and more …
You can also edit your table information after it has been created in the “Table Manipulation” subsection. You can add links and images, 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 displayed on your posts (and let users specify 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 browser 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 when finished to save your table data …
After 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 screen. You can edit, see shortcodes, copy, export, delete and preview tables …
Using The Shortcode To Insert Tables Into Your Page Content
You can embed a table into any posts and pages using the TablePress shortcode.
You can get the shortcode for your tables by clicking 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 mouse cursor where you want the table to show 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 your tables.
Select the table you want to insert into your post or page and click Insert Shortcode …
Your TablePress shortcode will be added …
The table and table contents will display as soon as you publish your post or page …
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. Tweak the content in the plugin area, then save the new table settings and refresh your post to view the updated information.
Another great time-saving feature of this plugin, is that if you plan to keep adding more data to an existing table, just export your current table, then add new items, 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, select TablePress > Export a Table in the main menu …
In the “Export Tables” section, choose 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 table file to your hard drive …
After editing and resaving the table file, you can then easily reimport your table into WordPress.
To import a table into WordPress, go to your admin menu and 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, 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 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 documentation about additional 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 an extremely powerful time saving plugin that is free and will help you easily create and embed tables into your site content.
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