The ability to easily add tables to your pages 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.
The WordPress visual editor offers many great features, but there are some things that the default editor won’t do, such as giving you the option to easily create tables.
Although you can create tables manually in WordPress if you have knowledge of HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), for most non-technical WordPress users, this is not a feasible option.
Fortunately, you can do almost anything you can imagine on a WordPress site with plugins, and adding tables to your content is no exception.
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn how to create and add tables easily into your posts and pages with no coding skills required.
How To Easily Add Tables 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
TablePress is a powerful and time-saving plugin that makes creating, editing and managing tables in WordPress a very simple and easy process.
TablePress requires no knowledge or skills coding HTML, CSS, etc. It lets you easily edit your table data. Tables can contain any kind of data, even formulas.
An additional JavaScript library can be used to include features like pagination, sorting, filtering, and more for your site visitors. You can easily include the tables into your post content using shortcodes and even display tables inside text widgets.
Tables can also be imported and exported from/to CSV files (e.g. from Excel), HTML files, and JSON formats.
This 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 – Tutorial
To create and manage tables in WordPress using TablePress, first install and activate the TablePress plugin.
You can download this plugin here:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/tablepress
Or install it directly from within your WP Dashboard …
After the plugin has been installed and activated, a new menu item will appear on your WP admin menu called TablePress …
Click on TablePress and choose Plugin Options from the list of submenus …
The “Plugin Options” screen affects the plugin’s 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 item appears somewhere near the middle of your menu column. If you plan to use this plugin a lot, then you can easily position the menu option close to the top of your admin menu by choosing “Top-level (middle)” on the User Options > Admin menu entry dropdown menu …
The TablePress menu item now appears close to the top of your menu …
You can also specify other options in the “Plugin Options” section, like table formatting styles, default language, etc. If you don’t need to change these settings, just leave the default options.
With TablePress, you create edit and format your tables within the plugin section. Tables are then placed via a shortcode into your text. Your table will then display or update after saving and publishing your post.
The benefit of working directly from the plugin is that you can easily modify the data inside 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 the table 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, and 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 your new table is created, it will be listed in the “All Tables” list and get assigned a unique Shortcode ID …
The TablePress shortcode lets you easily insert tables anywhere inside a post or page by simply inserting or copying and pasting the shortcode wherever you want to display a table …
Once a new table has been created, adding content to your table is really easy.
In the “Table Content” section, click inside the cell and either 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 hyperlinks, etc …)
Once your new table is created, the plugin will display additional options for configuring 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, make the background of consecutive rows alternate in color, highlight a row when visitors hover their mouse over the table, display the table name and description above or below the table, and more …
You can also edit your table content after creating it in the “Table Manipulation” subsection. You can insert images and links, hide, show, insert, delete and clone selected columns and rows, add new columns and rows, combine cells, etc …
You can also enable JavaScript library features in your tables, such as allowing visitors to sort, filter and search your table content, change the number of table rows displayed on your content (and also allow users to 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 screen allowing you to preview your table. Certain features like JavaScript options are disabled in preview mode, but will display once your table is published …
Remember to click the Save Changes button when finished to save your table data …
After you have created one or more tables, you can view a list of all your tables by clicking on TablePress > All Tables …
A list of all the tables you have created will be displayed in this screen. You can edit, see shortcodes, copy, delete, export and preview your tables …
How To Use The Shortcode To Insert Tables Into Your Pages And Blog Posts
You can insert a table inside pages and posts 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 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 the table to be inserted then click the TablePress menu icon …
TablePress Menu Icon In Visual Editor Screen
Note: You can also insert a table when working inside the “Text” area of the WordPress editor …
TablePress Menu Icon In HTML Editor Screen
Clicking on the menu icon opens a window containing a list of all your available tables.
Select the table you want to add to your post or page and click Insert Shortcode …
Your TablePress shortcode will be placed in the location you specified …
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 edit data after publishing the table without having to open your post or page. Change the content in the plugin area, then save your new table settings and refresh your page 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 items, 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, select 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 table file to your hard drive …
After editing and resaving the table file, you can then easily reimport your table into WordPress.
To import a table into WordPress, 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 resembling a webpage, or its own JSON 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” section. You can also import multiple tables from compressed (ZIP) files and choose whether to import a table as a new table or to replace an existing table.
For more information about the plugin, including where to access documentation about additional features, or 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 an extremely powerful time saving plugin that is free and will help you easily create and embed tables into your page content.
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