Being able to easily add tables on your website can be very useful. Tables are great for sorting and presenting 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 it doesn’t let you do by default, such as giving you the option to easily create tables.
Although you can create tables manually in WordPress if you have knowledge of HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), for many non-technical users, this is simply not a practical option.
Fortunately, WordPress plugins give users almost unlimited expansion capabilities, and adding tables is no exception.
In this tutorial you will learn how to easily create and add tables into your content with no coding skills required.
How To Easily Create And Insert Tables Into WordPress Pages And Posts Without Programming Skills
To create and add tables to your WordPress posts or pages without touching code, we’ll use a FREE plugin called TablePress.
TablePress
TablePress is a powerful and time-saving WordPress plugin for creating, editing and managing tables in WordPress.
TablePress doesn’t require you to have any knowledge of HTML, CSS, etc. The plugin provides a simple user 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 include features like sorting, pagination, filtering, and more for your visitors. You can easily include the tables into your pages and blog posts using shortcodes and even display tables inside text widgets.
A table can also be imported and exported from/to CSV files (e.g. from Excel), HTML files, and JSON.
TablePress was written and developed by Tobias Bäthge and is licensed as Free Software under GNU General Public License 2 (GPL 2).
Using TablePress Plugin For WordPress – Step-By-Step Tutorial
To create and add tables to WordPress, first install and activate the TablePress plugin.
Download this plugin here:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/tablepress
Or install it from your own WordPress 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 list of submenus …
The “Plugin Options” screen controls your plugin styling and display settings …
For example, in the “User Options” section, you can change where the TablePress menu entry appears on your 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 position the menu item near the top of your Dashboard menu by selecting “Top-level (middle)” on the User Options > Admin menu entry dropdown menu …
The TablePress menu item will now appear towards the top area of your menu …
You can also specify other settings in the “Plugin Options” section, such as table formatting styles, default language, etc. If you don’t need to modify this section, simply leave the options as the default.
With TablePress, tables are created and edited inside the plugin screen. Tables are then inserted via a shortcode into your posts. The table will then display when saving your content.
The benefit of 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 data in all locations where the table has been added to your content.
To add a new table select TablePress > Add New Table …
Enter 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 the new table has been created, it will display in 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 simply by inserting or copying and pasting the shortcode wherever you want your table to display …
Once you have created a new table, adding content to it is really 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. add bold text, insert hyperlinks, etc …)
After your new table has been created, you will see additional options for configuring your table.
For example, in the “Table Options” section 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, make the background of consecutive rows alternate in colour, highlight a row 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 modify your table after it has been created in the “Table Manipulation” area. You can perform a range of table manipulations, such as adding links or images, hiding, showing, inserting, deleting and duplicating selected columns and rows, adding new rows and columns, combining cells, etc …
You can also enable JavaScript library features in your tables, such as allowing site visitors to sort, filter and search your table content, change the number of table rows displayed on your pages (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 on the Preview button …
A preview window will open on your screen displaying the table. Certain features like JavaScript options are disabled in preview mode, but will display when your table is published …
Click the Save Changes button after you are done editing to save your table data …
To view a list of all the tables you have created select TablePress > All Tables …
All the tables you have created are listed here. You can edit, see the shortcode, copy, delete, export and preview tables …
How To Use The Shortcode
You insert a table into content using the TablePress shortcode.
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 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 mouse cursor where you want the table to show 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 editor …
TablePress Menu Icon In HTML Editor Screen
Clicking on the menu icon brings up a list of your available tables.
Select the table you want to insert into your content and click Insert Shortcode …
Your TablePress shortcode will be added …
Publish your post or page to view the table and table contents …
As stated earlier, one of the great things about this plugin is that you can edit data 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 information.
Another great time-saving feature of the TablePress 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 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 an existing table, select TablePress > Export a Table in the admin menu …
In the “Export Tables” section, select the table(s) you would like 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 your table file, you can then easily reimport the table into WordPress.
To import a table into WordPress, select TablePress > Import a Table …
TablePress can import tables from existing data, such as CSV file data, from a spreadsheet application, 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 import source in the “Import Tables” area. You can also import multiple tables from ZIP files and choose whether to import a table as a new table or write over an existing table.
To learn more about TablePress, including where to access documentation about extra features, or get plugin 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 powerful and feature-rich free plugin will help you easily create and embed tables into your WordPress posts and pages.
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