Being able to easily add tables on your website can be really handy. Tables are great for sorting and presenting data to people in a format that can make your information easier to understand.
WordPress offers a feature-rich visual editor, but there are some things that it won’t let you do by default, such as letting you 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 most non-technical users, this is not a practical option.
Fortunately, WordPress plugins let you do almost anything you can imagine, and adding tables is no exception.
In this tutorial you will learn how to easily create and add tables into your site’s pages with no coding skills required.
How To Add Tables With WordPress
To create and add tables to your WordPress posts or pages with no coding skills required, we’ll use a FREE plugin called TablePress.
TablePress – WordPress Plugin
TablePress is a great WordPress plugin for creating, editing and managing tables in WordPress.
TablePress does not require you to have any knowledge or skills coding HTML, CSS, etc. The plugin lets you easily edit table data. You can add any type of data to tables.
An additional JavaScript library can be used to add features like sorting, pagination, filtering, and more for your site visitors. You can include the tables into your pages and blog posts using shortcodes and even display tables using text widgets.
You can also import and export a table from/to CSV files (e.g. from Excel), HTML files, and JSON.
The plugin was created by Tobias Bäthge and is licensed as Free Software under GNU General Public License 2 (GPL 2).
Using TablePress WP Plugin – Step-By-Step Tutorial
To create and manage tables in WordPress, install and activate the TablePress plugin.
Download the plugin here:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/tablepress
Or install it from within your WP Dashboard …
After installing and activating the plugin, you will see a new menu item has been added to your Dashboard menu called TablePress …
Click on TablePress and choose Plugin Options from the list of submenus …
The “Plugin Options” area 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 WP admin menu.
By default, the menu entry displays somewhere 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 the admin menu by specifying “Top-level (middle)” in the User Options > Admin menu entry dropdown menu …
The TablePress menu entry will now appear closer to the top section of your menu list …
You can also specify other options in the “Plugin Options” tab, like table formatting styles, default language, and so on. If you don’t need to change these settings, then just leave the default options.
With TablePress, you create edit and format tables inside the plugin area. Tables are then added via a shortcode into your WordPress posts and pages. The tables will then display or update when your content is published.
The great thing about working directly from the plugin is that you can easily change the information inside your tables without having to open any of your posts. The plugin then updates all of your table information in all instances where the table has been added to your content.
To create a new table select TablePress > Add New Table …
Type in a 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 get added to the “All Tables” list and get assigned a unique Shortcode ID …
The TablePress shortcode lets you easily add tables anywhere in your content simply by inserting or copying and pasting the shortcode wherever you want your tables to be displayed …
Once a new table has been created, adding content to the table is easy.
In the “Table Content” section, just click inside the cell and either type or paste your content. You can add text, images and format your content (e.g. bold or italicize words, 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” 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 colors on consecutive rows, highlight a row when a visitor hovers their mouse over the table, print the table name and description above or below the table, and more …
You can also edit your table information after it has been created in the “Table Manipulation” section. You can perform a range of table manipulations, like inserting links or images, hiding, showing, inserting, deleting and cloning selected rows and columns, adding new columns and rows, combining cells, etc …
You can also enable JavaScript library features in your tables, such as allowing visitors to sort, filter and search your table content, set the number of table rows displayed on your pages (and also allow visitors 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 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 …
Remember to click the Save Changes button when finished to save your new table data …
After you have created one or more tables, you can view a list of all your tables by selecting TablePress > All Tables …
All the tables you have created are listed here. You can edit, see shortcodes, copy, delete, export and preview tables …
How To Use The TablePress Shortcode
You embed a table into content using the TablePress shortcode.
You can get the shortcode for your tables by clicking 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 mouse cursor where you want your 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 WP editor …
TablePress Menu Icon In WordPress Text Editor Screen
Clicking on the menu icon opens a window containing a list of all your existing tables.
Select the table you want to insert into the content and click Insert Shortcode …
Your TablePress shortcode will be inserted into your content …
Publish the post or page to display your table and table contents …
As stated earlier, one of the great things about this plugin is that you can edit things 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 the TablePress plugin, is that if you plan to keep adding more data to an existing table, just 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) you want 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 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 (e.g. Excel), an HTML file, or its own JSON format.
To import a table, select and enter the source in the “Import Tables” section. You can import multiple tables from a compressed (ZIP) file and select whether to import tables as a new table or to replace an existing table.
For more information about TablePress, including accessing the plugin documentation for additional features, get technical support for the plugin, 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 a very powerful and feature-rich plugin that is free and will help you easily create and add tables into your WordPress posts and pages.
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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