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, 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 most non-technical WordPress users, this is not a feasible option.
Fortunately, you can do just about anything you can imagine on a WordPress site with plugins, and creating tables is no exception.
In this tutorial you will learn how to easily create and insert tables into your posts and pages without requiring knowledge of HTML or CSS or coding skills.
How To Easily Create And Insert Tables Into WordPress Posts And Pages Without Touching Code
Follow the step-by-step tutorial below to learn how to create and add tables in WordPress using a FREE WordPress plugin called TablePress.
TablePress
A very powerful and time-saving plugin that makes creating, editing and managing tables in your WordPress posts and pages simple and easy is TablePress.
TablePress doesn’t require you to have any knowledge or skills coding HTML, CSS, etc. It provides a simple interface that allows you to easily edit table data. You can add any type of data to tables.
An additional JavaScript library can be used to add features like pagination, sorting, filtering, and more for site users. You can insert tables into your pages and blog posts using shortcodes and even display tables using text widgets.
Tables can also be imported and exported from/to CSV files (e.g. from Excel), HTML files, and JSON.
This plugin was developed 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 add tables to WordPress posts and pages, first install and activate the TablePress plugin.
You can download this plugin here:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/tablepress
Or install it directly from within your own WP Dashboard …
Once the plugin has been installed and activated, you will see a new menu item displayed in your WordPress admin menu called TablePress …
Click on TablePress and select Plugin Options from the submenu list …
The “Plugin Options” page affects the plugin’s styling and display settings …
For example, in the “User Options” section, you can specify where the TablePress menu entry appears on your WP admin menu.
By default, the menu item appears somewhere in the middle of your menu bar. If you plan to use this plugin a lot, then you can position the menu option towards 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 show near the top section of the admin menu …
You can also specify other settings in the “Plugin Options” section, such as formatting styles for your tables, default language, and so on. Leave all settings as they are if you don’t need to change things in this section.
With TablePress, tables are created and formatted within the plugin screen. Tables are then inserted via a shortcode into your pages. The table will then display when republishing or saving your post.
The great thing about doing this is that you can easily update the information inside your tables without having to manually edit your pages and posts. TablePress then updates all of your table data inside all posts and pages where the table has been added to your content.
To add a new table select TablePress > Add New Table …
Enter the name, a description (optional), 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 change the name, description and size of your table at anytime…
Once the new table is 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 inside a post or page simply by typing or copying and pasting the shortcode wherever you want to display a table …
Once you have created a new table, adding content to the table is very easy.
In the “Table Content” section, click in the cell and either type or paste your content. You can add text, images and HTML formatting to your content (e.g. add bold text, insert links, etc …)
Once your new table is created, displays 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 and the last row of the table to be the table footer, display alternate background colours on consecutive rows, highlight rows when a visitor hovers their mouse over the table, display 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 insert images or links, hide, show, insert, delete and clone selected columns and rows, add new columns and rows, combine cells, etc …
You can also enable JavaScript library features in your tables that will allow site visitors to sort, filter and search your table content, change the number of table rows displayed on your site (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 displaying your table. Certain features like JavaScript options are disabled in preview mode, but will display when your post or page is published …
Click the Save Changes button after you are done editing to save your new table data …
To view a list of all the tables you have created click on TablePress > All Tables …
All the tables you have created are listed here. You can edit, see shortcodes, copy, delete, export and preview tables …
How To Use The Shortcode
You can embed tables inside pages and blog posts with the TablePress shortcode.
Click 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 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 editor …
TablePress Menu Icon In Text Editor Screen
Clicking on the menu icon opens a window containing a list of all the available tables you have created.
Select the table you want to insert into 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 the contents of your table after publishing the table without having to open your post or page. Change the content in the plugin area, then save your new table settings and refresh your page to view the updated information.
Another great time-saving feature of the TablePress plugin, is that if you plan to keep adding more data to an existing table, you can simply export your current table, then add new items, 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 an existing table, click on TablePress > Export a Table in the WP 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 file to your hard drive …
After editing and resaving your table file, you can then easily re-import the table into WordPress.
To import a table into WordPress from your hard drive, 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” area. You can also import multiple tables from compressed (ZIP) files and select whether to import a table as a new table or to replace an existing table.
To learn more about TablePress, including where to access the plugin documentation for additional features, get technical support for the plugin, contact the plugin author, 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 free plugin will help you easily create and add tables into your WordPress posts and pages.
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