Being able to display tables on your website can be really handy. Tables are great for sorting and presenting data to people in a way that makes your information easier to understand.
WordPress offers a feature-rich visual editor, but there are some things that the default editor doesn’t let you do, such as giving you the option to easily create tables.
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 practical option.
Fortunately, WordPress plugins give users almost unlimited expansion capabilities, and adding tables to your content is no exception.
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn how to create and add tables easily into your posts and pages without requiring knowledge of HTML or CSS or coding skills.
How To Create And Add Tables To WordPress Content
If you want to add tables to your WordPress posts or pages without touching code, the step-by-step tutorial below will show you how to easily do this using a FREE WordPress plugin called TablePress.
WordPress Plugin – TablePress
A very powerful and time-saving plugin for creating, editing and managing tables in WordPress is TablePress.
TablePress requires no knowledge or skills coding HTML, CSS, etc. It lets you easily edit your 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 your visitors. You can easily include the tables into your page content using shortcodes and 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.
The plugin was written and developed by Tobias Bäthge and is licensed as Free Software under GNU General Public License 2 (GPL 2).
Using TablePress – Tutorial
To create and manage tables in WordPress, install and activate the TablePress plugin.
Download this plugin here:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/tablepress
Or install it directly from your own Dashboard …
Once the plugin has been installed and activated, you will see a new menu item displayed in your WP admin menu called TablePress …
Click on TablePress and choose Plugin Options from the list of submenus …
The “Plugin Options” section affects the plugin’s styling and display settings …
For example, in the “User Options” section, you can specify where the TablePress menu entry appears on your admin menu.
By default, the menu entry appears somewhere around the middle of your menu. If you plan to use this plugin a lot, then you can easily position the menu item near the top of your Dashboard menu by specifying “Top-level (middle)” in the User Options > Admin menu entry dropdown menu …
The TablePress menu entry now displays close to the top section of your admin menu …
You can also play with other settings in the “Plugin Options” tab, like formatting styles for your tables, default language, etc. If you don’t need to change this section, simply leave the default options.
With TablePress, you create and edit your tables inside the plugin area. Tables are then added via a shortcode into your posts. Your table will then display or update after saving your content.
The great thing about doing this is that you can easily modify the data inside your tables without having to touch your pages and posts. TablePress then updates all of your table information everywhere where the table has been added to your content.
To create a new table select TablePress > Add New Table …
Enter a name, an optional description, 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, then click on the Add Table button to create your new table. You can change the name, description and size of any table you create at anytime…
Once the new table is created, it will be listed in the “All Tables” list and get assigned a unique Shortcode ID …
The TablePress shortcode allows you to easily add tables anywhere in your content by simply typing or copying and pasting the shortcode wherever you want to display your table …
Once you have created a new table, adding content to your table is easy.
In the “Table Content” section, just click inside the cell and type or paste the content you want to display. You can add text, images and format your content (e.g. bold or italicize words, 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 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 a row when visitors hover their mouse over the table, print the table name and description above or below the table, and more …
You can also modify your table content after it has been created in the “Table Manipulation” subsection. You can add images and links, 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 that will allow visitors to sort, filter and search your table content, change the number of table rows displayed on your content (and also allow visitors to specify 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 allowing you to preview your table. Certain features such as the JavaScript options are disabled in preview mode, but will display once your post or page is published …
Click the Save Changes button when finished to save your table information …
Once you have created one or more tables, you can view a list of all your tables by choosing TablePress > All Tables …
All the tables you have created are displayed in this section. You can edit, see shortcodes, copy, export, delete and preview tables …
How To Use The Shortcode
You embed a table into any content using the TablePress shortcode.
Click on the Show Shortcode menu item below your 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 your 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 WordPress editor …
TablePress Menu Icon In HTML Editor Screen
Clicking on the menu icon opens a window containing a list of all 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 your 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 edit your post or page. Edit 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, 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 admin menu …
In the “Export Tables” section, select the table(s) 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 file, you can then reimport your 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, 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” section. You can also import multiple tables from compressed (ZIP) files and choose whether to import a table as a new table or to replace an existing table.
To learn more about using the plugin, including accessing the plugin documentation for additional features, 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 plugin that is free and will help you easily create and add tables into your site content.
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"This is an awesome training series. I have a pretty good understanding of WordPress already, but this is helping me to move somewhere from intermediate to advanced user!" - Kim Lednum