Being able to provide visitors with tables on 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.
The WordPress visual editor is great, but there are some things that the default editor won’t do, like being able 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 many non-technical users, this is not a practical option.
Fortunately, WordPress plugins let you do almost anything you can imagine, 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 pages and blog posts with no coding skills required.
How To Add Tables In Pages And Posts With WordPress
If you want to add tables to your WordPress posts or pages and don’t have the skills or knowledge to create these using HTML or CSS, the step-by-step tutorial below will show you how to do this using a FREE plugin called TablePress.
TablePress – WP Plugin
TablePress is a very powerful and time-saving WordPress plugin that makes creating, editing and managing tables in your WordPress posts and pages simple and easy.
TablePress doesn’t require you to have any knowledge or skills coding HTML, CSS, etc. The plugin provides a simple interface that allows you to easily edit table data. Tables can contain any type of data, even formulas.
An additional JavaScript library can be used to add features like pagination, sorting, filtering, and more for your site visitors. You can insert tables into your page content 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 formats.
TablePress was written and developed by Tobias Bäthge and is licensed as Free Software under GNU General Public License 2 (GPL 2).
Using TablePress WP Plugin – Tutorial
To create and add tables to WordPress posts and 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 the plugin has been installed and activated, a new menu item will display on your WordPress admin menu called TablePress …
Click on TablePress and choose Plugin Options from the list of submenus …
The “Plugin Options” screen affects the plugin’s behavior in different areas of your site …
For example, in the “User Options” section, you can specify where the TablePress menu entry appears on your Dashboard menu.
By default, the menu item displays around the middle of your menu column. If you plan to use this plugin often, then you can easily position the menu item near the top of the Dashboard menu by selecting “Top-level (middle)” on the User Options > Admin menu entry dropdown menu …
The TablePress menu entry now displays close to the top area of your menu list …
You can also play with other settings in the “Plugin Options” tab, like formatting styles for your tables, default language, and so on. If you don’t need to change these settings, simply leave the default options.
With TablePress, tables are created and modified inside the plugin screen. Tables are then placed via a shortcode into your WordPress posts and pages. Your tables will then display or update when your content is published or updated.
The benefit of doing this is that you can easily update the data in your tables without having to touch your pages. The plugin then updates all of your table information in all locations where the table has been added to your content.
To create a new table select TablePress > Add New Table …
Enter a name, an optional description, 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 edit the name, description and size of any tables you create at anytime…
Once your new table has been 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 in your content simply by typing 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 very easy.
In the “Table Content” section, just click in 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 …)
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 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 colour, 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 modify your table information after creating it in the “Table Manipulation” area. You can perform a number of table manipulations, like adding images and 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 that will allow your visitors to sort, filter and search your table content, set the number of table rows displayed on your content (and also allow users to specify the number of rows displayed), display table information, etc …
You can preview your table anytime, by clicking the Preview button …
A preview window will open in your browser displaying your table. Certain features like JavaScript options are disabled in preview mode, but will display once your post or page is published …
Remember to click the Save Changes button after you are done editing to save your table data …
Once you have created one or more tables, you can view a list of all your tables by choosing TablePress > All Tables …
All the tables you have created are displayed in this section. You can edit, see the shortcode, copy, delete, export and preview tables …
How To Use The Shortcode To Embed Tables Into Your Page Content
You insert tables into your pages and posts with 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 shortcode menu icon 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 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 in the “Text” area of the WP editor …
TablePress Menu Icon In WordPress Text Editor Screen
Clicking on the menu icon displays a list of all the available tables you have created.
Select the table you want to embed into your content and click Insert Shortcode …
Your TablePress shortcode will be placed in the location you specified …
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 your new table settings and refresh your post to view the updated information.
Another great time-saving feature of this plugin, is that if you plan to keep adding new 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, click on TablePress > Export a Table in the WP admin menu …
In the “Export Tables” section, select the table(s) 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 admin menu and choose 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 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 choose whether to import a table as a new table or to replace an existing table.
For more information about TablePress, including accessing 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 a very powerful and feature-rich plugin that is free and will help you easily create and embed tables into your page content.
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