Being able to easily add tables on your website can be really handy. Tables help you sort and present data to visitors in a format that can make your information easier to understand.
WordPress offers a feature-rich visual editor, but there are some things that the default editor won’t do, such as letting you 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 most non-technical WordPress users, this is not a realistic option.
Fortunately, WordPress plugins give users almost unlimited expansion capabilities, 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 create and add tables easily into your content without requiring knowledge of HTML or CSS or coding skills.
How To Add Tables In WordPress Pages And Posts Without Touching Code
To add tables to your WordPress posts or pages with no coding skills required, we’ll use a FREE plugin called TablePress.
TablePress
A very powerful and time-saving plugin that makes creating, editing and managing tables in WordPress a very simple and easy process is TablePress.
TablePress requires no knowledge or skills coding HTML, CSS, etc. The plugin provides a simple user interface that lets you easily edit your table data. Tables can contain any kind of data, even formulas.
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 post content using shortcodes and display these using text widgets.
Tables can also be imported and exported from/to CSV files (e.g. from Excel), HTML files, and JSON.
The plugin was written and developed by Tobias Bäthge and is licensed as Free Software under GNU General Public License 2 (GPL 2).
Using TablePress – Tutorial
To create and manage tables in WordPress posts and pages, install and activate the TablePress plugin.
You can download this plugin here:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/tablepress
Or install it directly from within your WP Dashboard …
Once the plugin has been installed and activated, a new menu item will be added to your WP admin menu called TablePress …
Click on TablePress and choose Plugin Options from the list of submenus …
The “Plugin Options” page controls your plugin 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 entry displays around the middle of your menu bar. If you plan to use this plugin a lot, then you can easily position the menu option close to the top of your Dashboard menu by choosing “Top-level (middle)” in the User Options > Admin menu entry dropdown menu …
The TablePress menu entry now appears closer to the top section of your menu …
You can also play with other plugin options in the “Plugin Options” area, like table formatting styles, default language, and so on. If you don’t need to change this section, simply leave the options as the default.
With TablePress, tables are created and edited inside the plugin section. Tables are then inserted via a shortcode into your posts. The table will then display after your post or page is published.
The benefit of doing this is that you can easily change the information in your tables without having to open any of your pages. The plugin then updates all of your table information in all locations where the table has been added to your content.
To create a new table select TablePress > Add New Table …
Enter the table name, an optional description, 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, then click on the Add Table button to create your new table. You can change the name, description and size of any tables you create at anytime…
Once the new table is created, it will get added to the “All Tables” list and be assigned a unique Shortcode ID …
The TablePress shortcode allows you to easily insert tables anywhere in your content simply by typing or copying and pasting the shortcode wherever you want to display your table …
Once a new table has been created, adding content to it is really easy.
In the “Table Content” section, 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 links, etc …)
After your new table has been created, you will see 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 or 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 content after it has been created in the “Table Manipulation” area. You can perform a range of table manipulations, such as inserting links and images, hiding, showing, inserting, deleting and cloning 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 site visitors to sort, filter and search your table content, set the number of table rows showing on your page (and also allow users to change the number of rows displayed), display table information, etc …
You can see how your table looks 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 when 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 the tables you have created will be displayed in this screen. You can edit, see the shortcode, copy, delete, export and preview tables …
Using The Shortcode To Embed Tables Into Your Pages And Blog Posts
You insert tables into your page content using 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 content 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 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 Text Editor Screen
Clicking on the menu icon brings up a list of all the available tables you have created.
Select the table you want to add to the post or page and click Insert Shortcode …
Your TablePress shortcode will be inserted into your content …
Publish the post or page to display the table and table contents …
As stated earlier, one of the great things about TablePress is that you can change information 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 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 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 your main menu …
In the “Export Tables” section, choose 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 table file to your hard drive …
After editing and resaving your table file, you can then easily re-import your table into WordPress.
To import a table, go to your admin menu and 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 format.
To import a table, select and enter the source in the “Import Tables” section. You can also import multiple tables from ZIP files and select whether to import tables as a new table or to replace an existing table.
To learn more about TablePress, including accessing 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 and feature-rich plugin that is free and will help you easily create and embed tables into your WordPress posts and pages.
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