The ability to easily add tables to your website can be really handy. Tables are great for sorting and presenting 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 giving you the option to 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 users, this is not a realistic option.
Fortunately, you can do almost anything you can imagine on a WordPress site with plugins, and adding tables is no exception.
In this tutorial you will learn how to easily create and insert tables into your posts and pages with no coding skills required.
How To Easily Insert Tables Into Your Content
Follow the step-by-step tutorial below to learn how to easily create and add tables in WordPress using a FREE plugin called TablePress.
TablePress
TablePress is a powerful and time-saving 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. It lets you easily edit table data. Your tables can contain any type of data, even formulas.
An additional JavaScript library can be used to include features like pagination, sorting, filtering, and more for your visitors. You can easily insert tables into your page content using shortcodes and even display these using text widgets.
Tables can also be imported and exported from/to CSV files (e.g. from Excel), HTML files, and JSON.
TablePress was written and developed by Tobias Bäthge and is licensed as Free Software under GNU General Public License 2 (GPL 2).
Using TablePress – Step-By-Step Tutorial
To create and add tables to WordPress posts or pages, first install and activate the TablePress plugin.
You can download the plugin here:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/tablepress
Or install it directly from your Dashboard …
Once you have installed and activated the plugin, a new menu item will be added to your Dashboard menu called TablePress …
Click on TablePress and select Plugin Options from the submenu list …
The “Plugin Options” screen affects the plugin’s styling and display settings …
For example, in the “User Options” section, you can change the position of the TablePress menu entry in your Dashboard menu.
Normally, the menu item appears somewhere in the middle of your menu. If you plan to use this plugin a lot, then you can position the menu option towards the top of your admin menu by specifying “Top-level (middle)” on the User Options > Admin menu entry dropdown menu …
The TablePress menu item now appears closer to the top section of your admin menu …
You can also play with other options in the “Plugin Options” section, like table formatting styles, default language, etc. Leave these options as they are if you don’t need to change things in this area.
With TablePress, tables are created and edited within the plugin section. Tables are then added via a shortcode into your text. Your tables will then display after publishing or updating your page.
The great thing about working directly from the plugin is that you can easily update the information inside your tables without having to open any of your posts. The plugin 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 …
Type in the table name, a description (optional), 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 tables at anytime…
Once the new table has been created, it will appear in the “All Tables” list and be 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 table to display …
Once a new table has been created, adding content to your table is easy.
In the “Table Content” section, just click in the cell and either type or paste your content. You can add text, images and HTML formatting to your content (e.g. bold or italicize words, 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 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 a visitor hovers their mouse over the table, show the table name and description above or below the table, and more …
You can also edit your table after creating it in the “Table Manipulation” section. You can perform a range of different edits on your table, such as adding images and links, hiding, showing, inserting, deleting and duplicating selected columns and rows, adding new columns and rows, combining 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 showing 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 allowing you to preview your table. Certain features like JavaScript options are disabled in preview mode, but will display when your post or page is published …
Click the Save Changes button when finished to save your new table information …
To view a list of all your tables TablePress > All Tables …
A list of all the tables you have created will be displayed in this screen. You can edit, see shortcodes, copy, export, delete and preview tables …
Using The Shortcode
You can embed tables into 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 the table to show then click the TablePress menu icon …
TablePress Menu Icon In Visual Editor Screen
Note: You can also add a table when working in the “Text” area of the WP editor …
TablePress Menu Icon In WordPress HTML Editor Screen
Clicking on the menu icon brings up a list of all the available tables you have created.
Select the table you want to add to the content and click Insert Shortcode …
Your TablePress shortcode will be inserted into your content …
Your 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 edit the contents of your table after publishing the table without having to edit your post or page. Tweak 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 this 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 table 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 WP admin 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 reimport the 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 resembling a webpage, or its own JSON format.
To import a table, select and enter the import source in the “Import Tables” section. You can also import multiple tables from a ZIP file and select whether to import tables as a new table or write over an existing table.
For more information about TablePress, including where to access documentation about extra features, 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 a very useful time saving plugin that is free and will help you easily create and insert tables into your page content.
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