Being able to provide visitors with tables on your content can be really handy. Tables are great for sorting and presenting data to visitors 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 won’t let you do, such as letting you 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 most non-technical WordPress users, this is simply not a realistic option.
Fortunately, you can do just about anything you can imagine on a WordPress site with plugins, and adding tables is no exception.
In this tutorial you will learn how to easily create and add tables into your site’s pages with no coding skills required.
Adding Tables In Posts And Pages With WordPress
If you want to add tables to your WordPress posts or pages and don’t have the skills to create these using HTML or CSS, then the step-by-step tutorial below will show you how to do this using a FREE plugin called TablePress.
TablePress – WordPress Plugin
A powerful and time-saving WordPress plugin for creating, editing and managing tables in WordPress is TablePress.
TablePress does not require you to have any knowledge or skills coding HTML, CSS, etc. It lets you easily edit table data. Your 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 include the tables into your post content using shortcodes and even display tables inside 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 WP Plugin – 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 directly from within your WP Dashboard …
After the plugin has been installed and activated, a new menu item will get added to your WP admin menu called TablePress …
Click on TablePress and select 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 specify the position of the TablePress menu entry in your admin menu.
By default, the menu entry displays somewhere near the middle of your menu bar. If you plan to use this plugin a lot, then you can easily position the menu option near the top of your Dashboard menu by choosing “Top-level (middle)” on the User Options > Admin menu entry dropdown menu …
The TablePress menu entry will now appear towards the top section of the 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 modify these settings, simply leave the default options.
With TablePress, tables are created and edited inside the plugin area. Tables are then inserted via a shortcode into your pages and posts. Your table will then display or update when publishing or updating your post.
The benefit of working directly from the plugin is that you can easily modify the information in your tables without having to open any of your posts. TablePress then updates all of your table data in all locations where the table has been added to your content.
To create a new table select TablePress > Add New Table …
Enter a table 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 edit the name, description and size of any tables you create at anytime…
Once your new table is created, it will display in the “All Tables” list and be assigned a unique Shortcode ID …
The TablePress shortcode allows you to easily add tables anywhere inside a post or page 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 the table is 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. bold or italicize words, insert hyperlinks, etc …)
Once your new table is created, you will see additional options for configuring your table.
For example, in the “Table Options” area you can specify 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 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 after creating it in the “Table Manipulation” subsection. You can perform a number of manipulations on your table, such as inserting images and links, hiding, showing, inserting, deleting and duplicating 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 your visitors to sort, filter and search your table content, set the number of table rows displayed on your post (and let visitors change 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 allowing you to preview the table. Certain features such as the JavaScript options are disabled in preview mode, but will display once your table is published …
Click the Save Changes button after you are done editing to save your new table information …
To view a list of all your tables TablePress > All Tables …
A list of all your tables will be displayed in this screen. You can edit, see shortcodes, copy, export, delete and preview tables …
How To Use The TablePress Shortcode
You insert tables into any page content using the TablePress shortcode.
Get the shortcode for your tables by clicking on the Show Shortcode menu item under 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 mouse cursor where you want the table to be inserted 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 editor …
TablePress Menu Icon In WordPress HTML Editor Screen
Clicking on the menu icon brings up a list of your existing tables.
Select the table you want to embed in the post or page and click Insert Shortcode …
Your TablePress shortcode will be inserted …
The table and 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 change data after publishing the table without having to open your post or page. Just tweak 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 data to an existing table, you can simply export your current table, then add new information, 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, click on TablePress > Export a Table in your admin menu …
In the “Export Tables” section, choose the table(s) you would like 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 file, you can then easily reimport 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 (e.g. Excel), 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 import multiple tables from ZIP files and select whether to import tables as a new table or write over an existing table.
For more information about using TablePress, including where to access the plugin documentation for additional features, or get technical support, 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 a very useful and feature-rich free plugin will help you easily create and add tables into your site 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)