Being able to easily add tables on your website can be very useful. Tables help you sort and present data to visitors in a format that can make your information easier to understand.
The WordPress visual editor offers many features, but there are some things that the default editor won’t let you do, like being able to 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 not a realistic option.
Fortunately, WordPress plugins give users almost unlimited expansion capabilities, and inserting tables into your content is no exception.
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn how to easily create and insert tables into your site’s pages without requiring knowledge of HTML or CSS or coding skills.
How To Easily Create And Add Tables In WordPress With No Programming Skills Required
To add tables to your WordPress posts or pages without touching code, we’ll use a FREE plugin called TablePress.
WP Plugin – TablePress
A powerful and time-saving plugin that makes creating, editing and managing tables in your WordPress posts and pages a very simple and easy process is TablePress.
TablePress requires no knowledge or skills coding HTML, CSS, etc. The plugin lets you easily edit table data. 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 site visitors. You can include the tables into your post content using shortcodes and display these 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 created by Tobias Bäthge and is licensed as Free Software under GNU General Public License 2 (GPL 2).
How To Use TablePress – Step-By-Step Tutorial
To create and add tables to WordPress with TablePress, install and activate the TablePress plugin.
Download the plugin here:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/tablepress
Or install it directly from your WP Dashboard …
Once the plugin has been installed and activated, you will see a new menu item added to your WordPress admin 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 modify where the TablePress menu entry appears on your WP admin menu.
Normally, the menu item appears somewhere around the middle of your menu bar. If you plan to use this plugin a lot, then you can position the menu option towards the top of your Dashboard menu by choosing “Top-level (middle)” on the User Options > Admin menu entry dropdown menu …
The TablePress menu entry now displays at the top section of your menu …
You can also play with other plugin options in the “Plugin Options” screen, such as table formatting styles, default language, and so on. Leave all settings as they are if you don’t need to change things in this section.
With TablePress, tables are created and modified inside the plugin area. Tables are then added via a shortcode into your text. Your table will then display after saving and publishing your page.
The advantage of doing this is that you can easily modify the data in your tables without having to manually edit your posts and pages. 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 …
Enter a name, a description (optional), and the number of rows and columns you would like 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 change the name, description and size of any tables you create at anytime…
Once the new table is created, it will be listed in the “All Tables” list and be assigned a unique Shortcode ID …
The TablePress shortcode allows you to easily insert tables anywhere inside a post or page simply by typing or copying and pasting the shortcode wherever you want to display a table …
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 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 a row when visitors hover their mouse over the table, display 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 perform various operations on your table, like inserting links or images, hiding, showing, inserting, deleting and cloning selected rows and columns, adding new rows and columns, combining 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 posts (and also allow users to change the number of rows displayed), display table information, etc …
You can preview your table anytime, by clicking on the Preview button …
A preview window will open displaying the table. Certain features like 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 update your table information …
After you have created one or more tables, you can view a list of all your tables by clicking on TablePress > All Tables …
A list of all the tables you have created will be displayed in this screen. You can edit, see the shortcode, copy, delete, export and preview tables …
How To Use The Shortcode
You insert a table into any pages and blog posts using the TablePress shortcode.
You can get the shortcode for your tables by clicking on the Show Shortcode menu item below 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 your table to show then click the TablePress menu icon …
TablePress Menu Icon In WordPress Visual Editor Screen
Note: You can also add a table when working inside the “Text” area of the editor …
TablePress Menu Icon In Text Editor Screen
Clicking on the menu icon brings up a list of all existing tables.
Select the table you want to insert into the post or page and click Insert Shortcode …
Your TablePress shortcode will be added …
The table will display as soon as you publish your post or page …
As stated earlier, one of the great things about this plugin is that you can change information after publishing the table without having to edit your post or page. Tweak the content in the plugin area, then save your new table settings and refresh your page to view the updated content.
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 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 a table, select TablePress > Export a Table in the main menu …
In the “Export Tables” section, select the table(s) you want to export (tip: 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 reimport your table into WordPress.
To import a table, 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 source in the “Import Tables” section. You can also import multiple tables from ZIP files and choose whether to import a table as a new table or to replace an existing table.
For more information about using the plugin, including accessing documentation about additional features, or get technical 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 quite a powerful time saving free plugin will help you easily create and insert tables into your WordPress posts and pages.
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