Being able to display tables on your website can be very useful. Tables help you sort and present data to people in a way that makes your information easier to understand.
WordPress offers a great visual editor, but there are some things that it won’t do by default, such as letting you easily create tables.
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 adding tables to your content is no exception.
In this tutorial you will learn how to create and insert tables easily into your WordPress posts and pages without requiring knowledge of HTML or CSS or coding skills.
How To Create And Insert Tables Into Your Content With No Programming Skills Required
If you want to add tables into your WordPress content and don’t have the skills or knowledge to create tables using HTML or CSS, the step-by-step tutorial below will show you how to easily add tables into your WordPress posts and pages using a FREE WordPress plugin called TablePress.
TablePress
A very powerful and time-saving WordPress plugin that makes creating, editing and managing tables in your WordPress posts and pages simple and easy is TablePress.
TablePress requires no knowledge of HTML, CSS, etc. The plugin provides a simple user interface that lets you easily edit your table data. You can add any kind of data to tables.
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 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.
TablePress was written and developed by Tobias Bäthge and is licensed as Free Software under GNU General Public License 2 (GPL 2).
How To Use TablePress – Tutorial
To create and add tables to WordPress posts and pages, first install and activate the TablePress plugin.
You can download this plugin here:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/tablepress
Or install it from within your Dashboard …
After installing and activating the plugin, a new menu item will get added to your main menu called TablePress …
Click on TablePress and select 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 the position of the TablePress menu entry in your admin menu.
By default, the menu item displays somewhere around the middle of your menu. 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 closer to the top section of your menu …
You can also specify other options in the “Plugin Options” tab, such as formatting styles for your tables, default language, and so on. Leave all default options as they are if you don’t need to change things in this area.
With TablePress, you create and edit tables inside the plugin area. Tables are then inserted via a shortcode into your WordPress posts and pages. The table will then display when your post or page is published.
The great thing about working directly from the plugin is that you can easily change the information in your tables without having to touch your posts. The plugin then updates all of your table data everywhere where the table has been added to your content.
To add a new table select TablePress > Add New Table …
Enter the 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 edit the name, description and size of your table at anytime…
Once your new table has been created, it will be added to the “All Tables” list and get assigned a unique Shortcode ID …
The TablePress shortcode allows you to easily add tables anywhere inside a post or page by simply typing or copying and pasting the shortcode wherever you want your tables to display …
Once a new table has been created, adding content to it is 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 links, 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 and 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 content after it has been created in the “Table Manipulation” section. You can insert images or links, hide, show, insert, delete and clone selected columns and rows, add new rows and columns, combine cells, etc …
You can also enable JavaScript library features in your tables, such as allowing your site users to sort, filter and search your table content, change the number of table rows displayed on your site (and let users 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 browser allowing you to preview 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 after you are done editing to update your new table data …
To view a list of all the tables you have created click on TablePress > All Tables …
Your tables are listed here. You can edit, see shortcodes, copy, export, delete and preview tables …
How To Use The Shortcode
You can insert a table inside any pages and posts using the TablePress shortcode.
Click 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 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 Visual Editor Screen
Note: You can also add a table when working inside the “Text” area of the WP editor …
TablePress Menu Icon In WordPress HTML Editor Screen
Clicking on the menu icon opens a window containing a list of all the available tables you have created.
Select the table you want to embed into the content and click Insert Shortcode …
Your TablePress shortcode will be added …
The table contents 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 the contents of your table after publishing the table without having to edit your post or page. Just tweak the content in the plugin area, then save your new table settings and refresh your post 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, you can simply export your current table, then add new data, 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 main menu …
In the “Export Tables” section, select the table(s) 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 easily re-import your table into WordPress.
To import a table into WordPress, go to the admin menu and choose 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” area. You can import multiple tables from ZIP files and select whether to import tables as a new table or replace an existing table.
To learn more about TablePress, including accessing the plugin documentation for additional features, 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 quite a useful time saving plugin that is free and will help you easily create and embed tables into your site content.
***
"This is AMAZING! I had learnt about how to use WordPress previously, but this covers absolutely everything and more!! Incredible value! Thank you!" - Monique, Warrior Forum