Being able to provide visitors with tables on your content can be very useful. Tables help you sort and present data to people in a format that can make your information easier to understand.
WordPress provides users with a feature-rich visual editor, but there are some things that the default editor doesn’t do, like being able 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 many non-technical WordPress users, this is simply not a practical option.
Fortunately, WordPress plugins give users almost unlimited expansion capabilities, and inserting tables into your content with the click of a mouse is no exception.
In this tutorial you will learn how to easily create and add tables into your content without requiring knowledge of HTML or CSS or coding skills.
How To Create And Add Tables To WordPress Pages And Posts
Follow the tutorial below to learn how to create and add tables into your WordPress content using a FREE plugin called TablePress.
TablePress – WordPress Plugin
A powerful and time-saving WordPress plugin that makes creating, editing and managing tables in WordPress simple and easy is TablePress.
TablePress requires no knowledge or skills coding HTML, CSS, etc. The plugin provides a simple interface that allows you to 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 post 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 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 – Step-By-Step Tutorial
To create and add tables to WordPress, first install and activate the TablePress plugin.
You can download the plugin here:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/tablepress
Or install it directly from your own WP Dashboard …
Once you have installed and activated the plugin, you will see a new menu item has been added to your main menu called TablePress …
Click on TablePress and choose Plugin Options from the list of submenus …
The “Plugin Options” area controls your plugin styling and display settings …
For example, in the “User Options” section, you can change where the TablePress menu entry appears on your Dashboard menu.
Normally, the menu item appears around the middle of your menu column. If you plan to use this plugin often, then you can easily position the menu option closer to the top of the Dashboard menu by selecting “Top-level (middle)” on the User Options > Admin menu entry dropdown menu …
The TablePress menu entry will now show towards the top of your admin menu …
You can also specify other options in the “Plugin Options” screen, like formatting styles for your tables, default language, and so on. If you don’t need to change this section, simply leave the options as the default.
With TablePress, you create and edit your tables within the plugin area. Tables are then placed via a shortcode into your WordPress posts and pages. The tables will then display or update after publishing your content.
The benefit of doing this is that you can easily change the information in your tables without having to touch your pages and posts. TablePress then updates all of your table data everywhere where the table has been added to your content.
To create a new table select TablePress > Add New Table …
Enter 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, then 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 display in 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 typing or copying and pasting the shortcode wherever you want to display your table …
Once you have created a new table, adding content to your table is very easy.
In the “Table Content” section, just click inside the cell and 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, you will see additional options for configuring 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 rows 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 it has been created in the “Table Manipulation” section. You can perform a range of table edits, such as adding links and images, hiding, showing, inserting, deleting and cloning 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 visitors to sort, filter and search your table content, change the number of table rows displayed on your site (and let users 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 allowing you to preview the table. Certain features such as the 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 update your table data …
To view a list of all your tables TablePress > All Tables …
All your tables are listed here. You can edit, see shortcodes, copy, delete, export and preview your tables …
How To Use The Shortcode
You insert a table into any 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 your 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 your table to be embedded then click the TablePress menu icon …
TablePress Menu Icon In WordPress Visual Editor Screen
Note: You can also add a table when working in the “Text” area of the WordPress editor …
TablePress Menu Icon In HTML 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 in the content and click Insert Shortcode …
Your TablePress shortcode will be placed in the location you specified …
Your table and table contents 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 change data after publishing the table without having to edit your post or page. Just tweak the content in the plugin area, then save the new table settings and refresh your post 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, 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 a table, select TablePress > Export a Table in the admin menu …
In the “Export Tables” section, select the table(s) you want 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 your file, you can then easily re-import the table into WordPress.
To import a table into WordPress from your hard drive, go to your 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. 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” area. You can import multiple tables from a compressed (ZIP) file and choose whether to import a table as a new table or write over an existing table.
To learn more about using the plugin, including accessing documentation about additional 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 an extremely useful and feature-rich free plugin will help you easily create and add tables into your site content.
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