The ability to easily add tables to your website can be really handy. Tables are great for sorting and presenting data to people 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 won’t let you do, such as giving you the option to create tables without having to learn code.
Although you can add tables manually to your content 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 realistic 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 create and insert tables easily into your site’s pages without requiring knowledge of HTML or CSS or coding skills.
Creating And Inserting Tables Into Your Content Easily In WordPress
To add tables to your WordPress posts or pages without touching code, we’ll use a FREE WordPress plugin called TablePress.
WP Plugin – TablePress
TablePress is a very powerful and time-saving plugin that makes creating, editing and managing tables in your WordPress posts and pages simple and easy.
TablePress does not require you to have any knowledge or skills coding HTML, CSS, etc. It lets you easily edit your table data. You can add any kind of data to tables.
An additional JavaScript library can be used to include features like pagination, sorting, filtering, and more for visitors. You can easily include the tables into your pages and blog posts using shortcodes and display tables inside text widgets.
A table can also be imported and exported from/to CSV files (e.g. from Excel), HTML files, and JSON.
The plugin was created by Tobias Bäthge and is licensed as Free Software under GNU General Public License 2 (GPL 2).
How To Use TablePress – Tutorial
To create and manage tables in WordPress posts or pages, install and activate the TablePress plugin.
Download this plugin here:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/tablepress
Or install it from within your own WordPress Dashboard …
After installing and activating the plugin, a new menu item will display on your admin menu called TablePress …
Click on TablePress and choose Plugin Options from the submenu list …
The “Plugin Options” area 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.
By default, the menu item displays somewhere in the middle of your menu column. If you plan to use this plugin often, then you can easily position the menu option towards the top of the admin menu by specifying “Top-level (middle)” in the User Options > Admin menu entry dropdown menu …
The TablePress menu entry now appears closer to the top section of the admin menu …
You can also specify other options in the “Plugin Options” tab, like formatting styles for your tables, default language, and so on. Leave the default options as they are if you don’t need to change things in this area.
With TablePress, you create and edit tables inside the plugin screen. Tables are then placed via a shortcode into your content. The tables will then display when your post or page is republished.
The great thing about 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 information in all instances where the table has been added to your content.
To add a new table select TablePress > Add New Table …
Enter 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 any tables you create 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 allows you to easily add tables anywhere in your content simply by typing or copying and pasting the shortcode wherever you want to display a table …
Once a new table has been created, adding content to it is easy.
In the “Table Content” section, just click in 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. 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 colour, highlight a row 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” subsection. You can insert links or images, hide, show, insert, delete and duplicate selected rows and columns, 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 post (and also allow users to change 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 on your screen displaying your table. Certain features like JavaScript options are disabled in preview mode, but will display when your table is published …
Click the Save Changes button after you are done editing to update your new table information …
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, export, delete and preview tables …
How To Use The Shortcode To Embed Tables Into Your Pages And Blog Posts
You can embed a table inside pages and posts with a 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 show 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 WP editor …
TablePress Menu Icon In WordPress Text Editor Screen
Clicking on the menu icon brings up a list of all your existing tables.
Select the table you want to embed in the content and click Insert Shortcode …
Your TablePress shortcode will be added …
Publish your post or page to view the table …
As stated earlier, one of the great things about this plugin is that you can edit information after publishing the table without having to open your post or page. Tweak the content in the plugin area, then save the new table settings and refresh your content 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, just export your current table, then add new items, 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, select 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 making changes and resaving your table file, you can then reimport your table into WordPress.
To import a table, go to the 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 resembling a webpage, or its own JSON format.
To import a table, select and enter the import source in the “Import Tables” area. You can import multiple tables from ZIP files and choose whether to import tables as a new table or write over an existing table.
For more information about using TablePress, including accessing the plugin documentation for extra 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 quite a powerful and feature-rich free plugin will help you easily create and add tables into your site content.
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