The ability to easily add tables to your content can be very useful. Tables are great for sorting and presenting data to people in a format that can make your information easier to understand.
The WordPress visual editor is great, but there are some things that the default editor doesn’t do, such as giving you the option to easily create tables.
Although you can add tables manually to your content in WordPress if you have knowledge of HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), for many non-technical users, this is simply not a practical option.
Fortunately, you can do almost anything you need done on a WordPress site with plugins, and creating tables is no exception.
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn how to create and insert tables easily into your WordPress posts and pages with no coding skills required.
How To Easily Insert Tables Into WordPress Without Coding Skills
If you want to add tables into your WordPress content without touching code, then the step-by-step tutorial below will show you how to easily do this using a FREE plugin called TablePress.
TablePress – WP Plugin
TablePress is a very powerful and time-saving WordPress plugin for creating, editing and managing tables in WordPress.
TablePress requires no knowledge of HTML, CSS, etc. It provides a simple user interface that lets you easily edit table data. You can add any kind of data, even formulas to tables.
An additional JavaScript library can be used to include features like sorting, pagination, filtering, and more for visitors. You can easily include the tables into your posts and pages using shortcodes and display tables using text widgets.
Tables can also be imported and exported from/to CSV files (e.g. from Excel), HTML files, and JSON.
TablePress 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 manage tables in WordPress posts and pages, install and activate the TablePress plugin.
Download the plugin here:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/tablepress
Or install it directly from within your WordPress Dashboard …
After installing and activating the plugin, you will see a new menu item in your admin menu called TablePress …
Click on TablePress and choose Plugin Options from the submenu list …
The “Plugin Options” screen affects the plugin’s behavior in different areas of your site …
For example, in the “User Options” section, you can modify where the TablePress menu entry appears on your admin menu.
By default, the menu entry appears somewhere in the middle of your menu. If you plan to use this plugin often, then you can easily position the menu item 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 now shows towards the top area of the menu …
You can also specify other settings in the “Plugin Options” screen, 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 modified inside the plugin section. Tables are then inserted via a shortcode into your content. Your tables will then display when your content is published.
The advantage of working directly from the plugin is that you can easily change the data inside your tables without having to manually edit your pages. The plugin then updates all of your table data 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 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, then click on the Add Table button to create your new table. You can change the name, description and size of your tables at anytime…
Once the new table has been created, it will be added to the “All Tables” list and get assigned a unique Shortcode ID …
The TablePress shortcode allows you to easily insert tables anywhere in your content by simply inserting or copying and pasting the shortcode wherever you want to display a 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 your content. You can add text, images and HTML formatting to your content (e.g. add bold text, insert hyperlinks, etc …)
Once your new table is 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, display alternate background colors 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 modify your table information after creating it in the “Table Manipulation” subsection. You can insert links and images, hide, show, insert, delete and clone selected columns and rows, add new rows and columns, 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, set the number of table rows displayed on your posts (and let visitors 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 displaying the table. Certain features such as the JavaScript options are disabled in preview mode, but will display once your table is published …
Remember to click the Save Changes button after you are done editing to save your new table data …
After you have created one or more tables, you can view a list of all your tables by choosing TablePress > All Tables …
A list of all the tables you have created will be displayed in this screen. You can edit, see the shortcode, copy, delete, export and preview tables …
How To Use The Shortcode
You embed a table into page content with 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 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 show then click the TablePress menu icon …
TablePress Menu Icon In WordPress Visual Editor Screen
Note: You can also add a table when working inside the “Text” area of the editor …
TablePress Menu Icon In Text Editor Screen
Clicking on the menu icon displays a list of all your existing tables.
Select the table you want to add to your post or page and click Insert Shortcode …
Your TablePress shortcode will be added …
The table contents 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 data after publishing the table without having to edit 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 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 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 an existing table, click on TablePress > Export a Table in the WP 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 making changes and resaving your table file, you can then easily re-import your table into WordPress.
To import a table, go to your sidebar menu and select TablePress > Import a Table …
TablePress can import tables from existing data, such as CSV file data, from a spreadsheet application (e.g. Excel), an HTML file resembling a webpage, or its own format.
To import a table, select and enter the source in the “Import Tables” area. You can also import multiple tables from ZIP files and choose whether to import a table as a new table or to replace an existing table.
For more information about TablePress, including where to access documentation about 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 useful and feature-rich free plugin will help you easily create and embed tables into your WordPress posts and pages.
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