The ability to easily add tables to 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 is great, but there are some things that the default editor doesn’t let you do, such as letting you create tables without having to learn code.
Although you can add tables manually to your content in WordPress if you have knowledge of HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), for many non-technical WordPress users, this is not a practical option.
Fortunately, you can do just about anything you need done on a WordPress site with plugins, and adding tables to your content with the click of a mouse is no exception.
In this tutorial you will learn how to create and add tables easily into your pages and blog posts without requiring knowledge of HTML or CSS or coding skills.
How To Create And Insert Tables Into Posts And Pages In WordPress
To add tables to your WordPress posts or pages with no coding skills required, we’ll use a FREE plugin called TablePress.
TablePress
A very powerful and time-saving WordPress plugin for creating, editing and managing tables in WordPress is TablePress.
TablePress requires no knowledge of HTML, CSS, etc. It provides a simple interface that allows you to easily edit your table data. You can add any type of data to your tables.
An additional JavaScript library can be used to add features like sorting, pagination, filtering, and more for visitors. You can insert tables into your pages and blog posts using shortcodes and display tables inside text widgets.
You can also import and export tables 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 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 within your WordPress Dashboard …
Once the plugin has been installed and activated, a new menu item will get added to your WordPress admin menu called TablePress …
Click on TablePress and select 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 specify where the TablePress menu entry appears on your admin menu.
Normally, the menu item appears 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 the Dashboard menu by specifying “Top-level (middle)” in the User Options > Admin menu entry dropdown menu …
The TablePress menu item will now show near the top section of the admin menu …
You can also specify other plugin options in the “Plugin Options” section, such as formatting styles for your tables, default language, and so on. If you don’t need to modify this section, just leave the default options.
With TablePress, tables are created and modified inside the plugin area. Tables are then inserted via a shortcode into your pages. The table will then display after republishing or saving your content.
The benefit of working directly from the plugin is that you can easily modify the information in your tables without having to manually edit your pages. The plugin then updates all of your table information inside all posts and pages where the table has been added to your content.
To create a new table select TablePress > Add New Table …
Type in a table name, an optional description, 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 edit the name, description and size of any tables you create 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 allows you to easily add tables anywhere inside a post or page simply by 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 in 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, displays additional options for configuring 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 color, highlight rows 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 after it has been created in the “Table Manipulation” area. 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 site visitors to sort, filter and search your table content, set the number of table rows displayed on your post (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 in your browser allowing you to preview the table. Certain features such as the JavaScript options are disabled in preview mode, but will display when your post or page is published …
Remember to click the Save Changes button after you are done editing to update your table information …
After you have created one or more tables, you can view a list of all your tables by choosing TablePress > All Tables …
Your tables are displayed in a list. You can edit, see the shortcode, copy, export, delete and preview your tables …
How To Use The TablePress Shortcode
You can insert a table into posts and pages with a shortcode.
Click on the Show Shortcode menu item under the 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 mouse cursor where you want the table to be inserted then click the TablePress menu icon …
TablePress Menu Icon In WordPress Visual Editor Screen
Note: You can also add a table when working in the “Text” area of the WordPress editor …
TablePress Menu Icon In Text Editor Screen
Clicking on the menu icon displays a list of all the available tables you have created.
Select the table you want to insert into the content and click Insert Shortcode …
Your TablePress shortcode will be placed in the location you specified …
Your 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 edit data 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 page to view the updated content.
Another great time-saving feature of the TablePress 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 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, click on 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 from your hard drive, 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, 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” area. You can import multiple tables from compressed (ZIP) files and select whether to import tables as a new table or replace an existing table.
For more information about using TablePress, including where to access documentation about extra 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 a very powerful and feature-rich plugin that is free and will help you easily create and insert tables into your WordPress posts and pages.
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