The ability to easily add tables to your content can be really handy. Tables are great for sorting and presenting data to people in a way that makes your information easier to understand.
The WordPress visual editor is great, but there are some things that the default editor won’t let you do, such as letting you create tables without having to learn code.
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 WordPress 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 insert tables into your pages and blog posts with no coding skills required.
Inserting Tables Into Posts And Pages With WordPress
To create and add tables into your WordPress content with no HTML or CSS knowledge required, we’ll use a FREE WordPress plugin called TablePress.
TablePress – WordPress Plugin
TablePress is a very powerful and time-saving plugin that makes creating, editing and managing tables in your WordPress posts and pages a very simple and easy process.
TablePress does not require you to have any knowledge or skills coding HTML, CSS, etc. It provides a simple user interface that lets you easily edit table data. Your tables can contain any kind of data, even formulas.
An additional JavaScript library can be used to include features like pagination, sorting, filtering, and more for visitors. You can easily insert tables into your content using shortcodes and even display these using text widgets.
A table can also be imported and exported 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 WordPress Plugin – 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 your WordPress Dashboard …
After the plugin has been installed and activated, you will see a new menu item in your Dashboard menu called TablePress …
Click on TablePress and choose Plugin Options from the list of submenus …
The “Plugin Options” page affects the plugin’s styling and display settings …
For example, in the “User Options” section, you can modify where the TablePress menu entry appears on your WP admin menu.
By default, the menu entry appears somewhere near the middle of your menu column. If you plan to use this plugin often, then you can position the menu option towards the top of the menu by selecting “Top-level (middle)” in the User Options > Admin menu entry dropdown menu …
The TablePress menu entry will now appear closer towards the top section of the admin menu …
You can also specify other options in the “Plugin Options” screen, like table formatting styles, default language, etc. If you don’t need to modify this section, then just leave the default options.
With TablePress, you create edit and format tables inside the plugin area. Tables are then inserted via a shortcode into your pages and posts. The tables will then display when your post or page is published or updated.
The benefit of doing this is that you can easily update the information inside your tables without having to open any of your pages and posts. TablePress then updates all of your table data in all instances where the table has been added to your content.
To create a new table select TablePress > Add New Table …
Type in the name, a description (optional), and the number of rows and columns you would like 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 table you create at anytime…
Once the new table is created, it will appear 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 a new table has been created, adding content to your table is really 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 …)
After your new table has been created, additional options appear that let you configure your table.
For example, in the “Table Options” area 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, make the background of consecutive rows alternate in colour, highlight rows when a visitor hovers their mouse over the table, display 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” subsection. You can add images and links, hide, show, insert, delete and duplicate selected rows and columns, add new rows and columns, combine cells, etc …
You can also enable JavaScript library features in your tables that will allow visitors to sort, filter and search your table content, change the number of table rows showing on your content (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 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 …
Click the Save Changes button when finished to update your new table data …
To view a list of all your tables TablePress > All Tables …
All the tables you have created are listed here. You can edit, see the shortcode, copy, delete, export and preview tables …
Using The Shortcode To Embed Tables Into Your Posts And Pages
You embed a table into content using the TablePress shortcode.
You can get the shortcode for your tables by clicking on the Show Shortcode menu item under 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 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 in the “Text” area of the WP editor …
TablePress Menu Icon In Text Editor Screen
Clicking on the menu icon displays a list of your existing tables.
Select the table you want to embed into your content and click Insert Shortcode …
Your TablePress shortcode will be inserted into your content …
Publish the post or page to display your table …
As stated earlier, one of the great things about TablePress is that you can edit the contents of your table 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 the TablePress plugin, is that if you plan to keep adding new data to an existing table, just export your current table, then add new data, 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 main menu …
In the “Export Tables” section, choose 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 file to your hard drive …
After changing and resaving your 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 (e.g. Excel), an HTML file resembling a webpage, 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 compressed (ZIP) files and select whether to import tables as a new table or replace an existing table.
To learn more about using TablePress, including where to access the plugin documentation for additional 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 useful and feature-rich plugin that is free and will help you easily create and insert tables into your page content.
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