The ability to easily add tables to your website can be very useful. Tables are great for sorting and presenting data to visitors in a way that makes your information easier to understand.
WordPress offers a feature-rich visual editor, 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 create tables manually in WordPress if you know HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), for most 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 step-by-step tutorial you will learn how to easily create and add tables into your pages and blog posts with no coding skills required.
How To Add Tables Into Your Content Easily With WordPress
To create and add tables into your WordPress content without touching code, we’ll use a FREE plugin called TablePress.
TablePress
A powerful and time-saving plugin for creating, editing and managing tables in WordPress is TablePress.
TablePress doesn’t require you to have any knowledge of HTML, CSS, etc. It lets you easily edit your table data. Tables can contain any type of data, even formulas.
An additional JavaScript library can be used to include features like sorting, pagination, filtering, and more for site users. You can easily include the tables into your pages and blog posts 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.
TablePress was created by Tobias Bäthge and is licensed as Free Software under GNU General Public License 2 (GPL 2).
Using TablePress – Tutorial
To create and add tables to WordPress, install and activate the TablePress plugin.
Download this plugin here:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/tablepress
Or install it directly from your Dashboard …
After the plugin has been installed and activated, a new menu item will be added to your WordPress admin menu called TablePress …
Click on TablePress and choose Plugin Options from the list of submenus …
The “Plugin Options” page controls your plugin styling and display settings …
For example, in the “User Options” section, you can modify the position of the TablePress menu entry in your Dashboard menu.
Normally, the menu entry appears somewhere around the middle of your menu bar. If you plan to use this plugin a lot, then you can position the menu option closer to the top of the admin menu by selecting “Top-level (middle)” on the User Options > Admin menu entry dropdown menu …
The TablePress menu entry will now appear near the top of the menu list …
You can also play with other settings in the “Plugin Options” tab, like formatting styles for your tables, default language, etc. If you don’t need to modify this section, simply leave the options as the default.
With TablePress, tables are created and formatted inside the plugin screen. Tables are then added via a shortcode into your pages. The tables will then display or update when your post or page is published.
The benefit of working directly from the plugin is that you can easily update the data inside your tables without having to open any of your posts and 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 add 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, and click on the Add Table button to create your new table. You can edit the name, description and size of your table at anytime…
Once your new table has been 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 display …
Once you have created a new table, adding content to it is really easy.
In the “Table Content” section, just click inside 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” area 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 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 creating it in the “Table Manipulation” subsection. You can perform a number of table edits, like adding links and images, hiding, showing, inserting, deleting and duplicating selected columns and rows, adding new rows and columns, 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 showing on your site (and let visitors change 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 your table. Certain features such as the JavaScript options are disabled in preview mode, but will display once your post or page is published …
Click the Save Changes button when finished to update your new table information …
After you have created one or more tables, you can view a list of all your tables by clicking on TablePress > All Tables …
Your tables are displayed in this section. You can edit, see the shortcode, copy, delete, export and preview your tables …
Using The Shortcode To Insert Tables Into Your Posts And Pages
You embed a table inside page content with 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 cursor where you want your table to appear 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 editor …
TablePress Menu Icon In WordPress Text Editor Screen
Clicking on the menu icon opens a window containing a list of all your tables.
Select the table you want to insert into the post or page and click Insert Shortcode …
Your TablePress shortcode will be added …
The table will display as soon as you publish your post or page …
As stated earlier, one of the great things about TablePress is that you can edit the contents of your table after publishing the table without having to open your post or page. Edit the content in the plugin area, then save your new table settings and refresh your post to view the updated content.
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 information, 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, select TablePress > Export a Table in your 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 your file, you can then reimport the table into WordPress.
To import a table, go to the Dashboard menu and 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 format.
To import a table, select and enter the source in the “Import Tables” section. You can also import multiple tables from a compressed (ZIP) file and select whether to import a table as a new table or write over an existing table.
To learn more about using the plugin, including where to access documentation about additional 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 an extremely useful time saving plugin that is free and will help you easily create and insert tables into your site content.
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