The ability to easily add tables to your website can be very useful. Tables are great for sorting and presenting data to people in a format that can make your information easier to understand.
WordPress offers a great visual editor, but there are some things that the default editor doesn’t let you do, 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 many non-technical WordPress users, this is simply not a feasible 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 easily create and add tables into your content without requiring knowledge of HTML or CSS or coding skills.
How To Insert Tables Into Your Content Easily With No Coding Skills Required
If you want to add tables to your WordPress posts or pages and don’t have the skills to create tables using HTML or CSS, then the step-by-step tutorial below will show you how to easily add tables into your WordPress posts and pages using a FREE plugin called TablePress.
TablePress – WP Plugin
TablePress is a very powerful and time-saving WordPress plugin that makes creating, editing and managing tables in your WordPress posts and pages a very simple and easy process.
TablePress requires no knowledge of HTML, CSS, etc. It lets you easily edit your table data. You can add any kind of data to your tables.
An additional JavaScript library can be used to include features like sorting, pagination, filtering, and more for your site visitors. You can easily insert tables into your post content using shortcodes and even display tables 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 written and developed by Tobias Bäthge and is licensed as Free Software under GNU General Public License 2 (GPL 2).
How To Use TablePress WordPress Plugin – Step-By-Step Tutorial
To create and manage tables in 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 own Dashboard …
After the plugin has been installed and activated, a new menu item will be added to your Dashboard menu called TablePress …
Click on TablePress and choose Plugin Options from the submenu list …
The “Plugin Options” area 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 admin menu.
By default, the menu entry displays around the middle of your menu bar. If you plan to use this plugin often, then you can position the menu option closer to the top of your menu by choosing “Top-level (middle)” on the User Options > Admin menu entry dropdown menu …
The TablePress menu entry will now display towards the top section of your admin menu …
You can also play with other plugin options in the “Plugin Options” tab, like formatting styles for your tables, default language, etc. If you don’t need to modify this section, just leave the default options.
With TablePress, tables are created and edited inside the plugin section. Tables are then inserted via a shortcode into your WordPress posts and pages. The tables will then display after your content is published.
The advantage of working directly from the plugin is that you can easily change the data in your tables without having to touch your pages. TablePress then updates all of your table information everywhere where the table has been added to your content.
To add a new table select TablePress > Add New Table …
Enter the name, a description (optional), and the number of rows and columns you want 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 any tables 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 allows you to easily add tables anywhere inside a post or page 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 really easy.
In the “Table Content” section, click inside 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, the plugin will display a number of additional options that will 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 color, 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 after it has been created in the “Table Manipulation” subsection. You can perform a range of manipulations on your table, like adding images and links, hiding, showing, inserting, deleting and duplicating selected rows and columns, adding new columns and rows, combining cells, etc …
You can also enable JavaScript library features in your tables that will allow your site users to sort, filter and search your table content, change the number of table rows displayed on your posts (and also allow users to specify 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 in your screen allowing you to preview the table. Certain features such as the JavaScript options are disabled in preview mode, but will display when your table is published …
Click the Save Changes button after you are done editing to save your table data …
Once you have created one or more tables, you can view a list of all your tables by selecting TablePress > All Tables …
A list of all your tables will be displayed in this section. You can edit, see the shortcode, copy, export, delete and preview tables …
How To Use The Shortcode To Insert Tables Into Your Pages And Blog Posts
You insert a table into any page content with the TablePress shortcode.
Click on the Show Shortcode menu item under your table title to get the shortcode …
The plugin also adds a shortcode menu icon to your WordPress editor. This allows you to easily insert tables into your posts and pages while working on your content.
Place your cursor where you want the table to be embedded 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 Text Editor Screen
Clicking on the menu icon brings up a list of all existing tables.
Select the table you want to add to the post or page and click Insert Shortcode …
Your TablePress shortcode will be inserted into your content …
Your table and 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 information after publishing the table without having to edit your post or page. Change the content in the plugin area, then save your 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 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 your WP admin 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 reimport your table into WordPress.
To import a table, go to your Dashboard menu and choose 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 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 a compressed (ZIP) file and choose whether to import a table as a new table or write over an existing table.
For more information about using TablePress, including where to access documentation about extra features, or get technical support for the plugin, 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 add tables into your WordPress posts and pages.
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