Being able to provide visitors with tables on your content 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 provides users with a feature-rich visual editor, but there are some things that it doesn’t let you do by default, such as giving you the option to easily create tables.
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 not a feasible option.
Fortunately, WordPress plugins let you do almost anything you can imagine, and adding tables to your content with the click of a mouse is no exception.
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn how to easily create and add tables into your WordPress posts and pages without requiring knowledge of HTML or CSS or coding skills.
How To Insert Tables Into WordPress Posts And Pages Easily With No Coding Skills Required
If you want to create and add tables to your WordPress posts or pages with no coding skills required, then the tutorial below will show you how to easily do this using a FREE WordPress plugin called TablePress.
TablePress – WordPress Plugin
A very powerful and time-saving plugin that makes creating, editing and managing tables in WordPress simple and easy is TablePress.
TablePress requires no knowledge of HTML, CSS, etc. It provides a simple user 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 pagination, sorting, filtering, and more for visitors. You can insert tables into your content using shortcodes and display these using text widgets.
You can also import and export a table from/to CSV files (e.g. from Excel), HTML files, and JSON formats.
The plugin was developed by Tobias Bäthge and is licensed as Free Software under GNU General Public License 2 (GPL 2).
How To Use TablePress – Step-By-Step Tutorial
To create and manage tables in WordPress using TablePress, first install and activate the TablePress plugin.
Download the plugin here:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/tablepress
Or install it from your own Dashboard …
After the plugin has been installed and activated, you will see a new menu item added to your WP admin menu called TablePress …
Click on TablePress and select Plugin Options from the list of submenus …
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 appears somewhere in the middle of your menu. If you plan to use this plugin often, then you can position the menu option close 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 displays closer towards the top section of your menu list …
You can also specify other options in the “Plugin Options” tab, such as table formatting styles, default language, etc. If you don’t need to change this section, just leave the options as the default.
With TablePress, you create and edit your tables within the plugin screen. Tables are then inserted via a shortcode into your posts. Your table will then display after publishing your content.
The benefit of doing this is that you can easily modify the data inside your tables without having to manually edit 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 name, a description (optional), 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, 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 be assigned a unique Shortcode ID …
The TablePress shortcode lets you easily insert tables anywhere in your content by simply typing or copying and pasting the shortcode wherever you want to display your table …
Once you have created a new table, adding content to it is very easy.
In the “Table Content” section, just click inside the cell and either type or paste the content you want to display. You can add text, images and format your content (e.g. add bold text, insert links, 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 color, 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 content after it has been created in the “Table Manipulation” subsection. You can perform a number of operations on your table, such as adding links and images, hiding, showing, inserting, deleting and duplicating selected rows and columns, adding new rows and columns, combining cells, etc …
You can also enable JavaScript library features in your tables, such as allowing your visitors to sort, filter and search your table content, change the number of table rows displayed on your post (and let users change the number of rows displayed), display table information, etc …
You can see how your table looks anytime, by clicking on the Preview button …
A preview window will open on your web browser displaying your 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 when finished to save your new table information …
After you have created one or more tables, you can view a list of all your tables by clicking on TablePress > All Tables …
A list of all your tables will be displayed in this screen. You can edit, see the shortcode, copy, delete, export and preview your tables …
How To Use The TablePress Shortcode To Insert Tables Into Your Posts And Pages
You embed a table into your pages and blog posts using a shortcode.
Click 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 the 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 HTML Editor Screen
Clicking on the menu icon brings up a list of all your existing tables.
Select the table you want to embed into your content and click Insert Shortcode …
Your TablePress shortcode will be inserted into your content …
Publish the post or page to view the table …
As stated earlier, one of the great things about TablePress is that you can change things after publishing the table without having to open your post or page. Edit the content in the plugin area, then save the new table settings and refresh your page 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, you can simply 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, select TablePress > Export a Table in the main menu …
In the “Export Tables” section, choose 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 file to your hard drive …
After changing and resaving your file, you can then easily re-import your table into WordPress.
To import a table, 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 JSON format.
To import a table, select and enter the import source in the “Import Tables” area. You can import multiple tables from compressed (ZIP) files and choose whether to import tables as a new table or write over an existing table.
To learn more about TablePress, including where to access the plugin documentation for additional features, or get plugin support, 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 a very useful time saving plugin that is free and will help you easily create and embed tables into your page content.
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"These tutorials have so much information and are easy to understand. If you use WordPress or plan to in the future these will help you with everything you need to know." - Valisa (Mesa, Arizona)