The ability to easily add tables to your pages can be very useful. Tables are great for sorting and presenting data to visitors in a way that makes your information easier to understand.
The WordPress visual editor offers many features, but there are some things that the default editor won’t 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 have knowledge of HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), for many non-technical WordPress users, this is not a practical option.
Fortunately, you can do just about 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 WordPress posts and pages without requiring knowledge of HTML or CSS or coding skills.
Adding Tables To WordPress Posts And Pages
If you want to add tables into your WordPress content with no coding skills required, the tutorial below will show you how to do this using a FREE WordPress plugin called TablePress.
WP Plugin – TablePress
A very powerful and time-saving WordPress 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 add features like sorting, pagination, filtering, and more for your site visitors. You can easily include the tables into your pages and blog posts using shortcodes and even display these inside text widgets.
Tables can also be imported and exported from/to CSV files (e.g. from Excel), HTML files, and JSON formats.
The plugin was 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 manage tables in WordPress, install and activate the TablePress plugin.
Download the plugin here:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/tablepress
Or install it directly from within your WP Dashboard …
Once you have installed and activated the plugin, a new menu item will get added to your main menu called TablePress …
Click on TablePress and select 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 change the position of the TablePress menu entry in your admin menu.
Normally, the menu item appears somewhere around the middle of your menu column. If you plan to use this plugin often, then you can easily position the menu option near the top of the menu by specifying “Top-level (middle)” in the User Options > Admin menu entry dropdown menu …
The TablePress menu item now appears close to the top section of the menu list …
You can also specify other settings in the “Plugin Options” screen, like formatting styles for your tables, default language, etc. If you don’t need to modify these settings, simply leave the default options.
With TablePress, tables are created and edited inside the plugin area. Tables are then placed via a shortcode into your content. Your table will then display after your post or page is published.
The advantage of working directly from the plugin is that you can easily modify the information in your tables without having to open any of your posts. TablePress 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 a table 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, and click on the Add Table button to create your new table. You can change the name, description and size of any table you create at anytime…
Once the new table has been created, it will get added to the “All Tables” list and be assigned a unique Shortcode ID …
The TablePress shortcode allows you to easily insert tables anywhere in your content simply by typing or copying and pasting the shortcode wherever you want to display your table …
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 the content you want to display. You can add text, images and format your content (e.g. bold or italicize words, insert links, etc …)
Once your new table is created, the plugin will display a number of additional options that will 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 or the last row of the table to be the table footer, make the background of consecutive rows alternate in colour, highlight rows when visitors hover their mouse over the table, print 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” subsection. You can perform various manipulations on your table, like adding images or links, 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 site visitors to sort, filter and search your table content, set the number of table rows displayed on your page (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 allowing you to preview your table. Certain features like JavaScript options are disabled in preview mode, but will display once your table is published …
Click the Save Changes button after you are done editing to update your new table data …
Once you have created one or more tables, you can view a list of all your tables by going to TablePress > All Tables …
A list of all the tables you have created will be displayed in this area. You can edit, see shortcodes, copy, export, delete and preview your tables …
How To Use The Shortcode
You embed a table into your page content using the TablePress shortcode.
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 menu item 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 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 opens a window containing a list of all your available tables.
Select the table you want to embed in the content and click Insert Shortcode …
Your TablePress shortcode will be inserted into your content …
Publish your post or page to view the table …
As stated earlier, one of the great things about TablePress 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 the new table settings and refresh your post 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, just 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, click on TablePress > Export a Table in the admin menu …
In the “Export Tables” section, choose 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 table file to your hard drive …
After editing and resaving the table file, you can then easily reimport the table into WordPress.
To import a table into WordPress, go to the sidebar 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, 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” 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 the plugin documentation for 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 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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