The ability to easily add tables to your website 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.
The WordPress visual editor offers many great features, but there are some things that it won’t do by default, such as giving you the option to easily create tables.
Although you can create tables manually in WordPress if you know HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), for many non-technical WordPress users, this is simply not a practical option.
Fortunately, you can do almost anything you can imagine on a WordPress site with plugins, and adding tables is no exception.
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn how to create and insert tables easily into your posts and pages with no coding skills required.
Inserting Tables Into Pages And Posts In WordPress
To add tables into your WordPress content with no coding skills required, we’ll use a FREE WordPress plugin called TablePress.
TablePress – WP Plugin
TablePress is a great WordPress plugin that makes creating, editing and managing tables in your WordPress posts and pages a very simple and easy process.
TablePress doesn’t require you to have any knowledge of HTML, CSS, etc. It lets you easily edit your table data. You can add any kind of data to your tables.
An additional JavaScript library can be used to add features like pagination, sorting, filtering, and more for your site visitors. You can include the tables into your pages and blog posts using shortcodes and 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 written and developed by Tobias Bäthge and is licensed as Free Software under GNU General Public License 2 (GPL 2).
How To Use TablePress Plugin For WordPress – Tutorial
To create and add tables to WordPress, install and activate the TablePress plugin.
You can download this plugin here:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/tablepress
Or install it from within your WordPress Dashboard …
After installing and activating the plugin, a new menu item will appear on 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 behavior in different areas of your site …
For example, in the “User Options” section, you can change where the TablePress menu entry appears on your Dashboard 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 easily position the menu item closer to the top of the menu by specifying “Top-level (middle)” on the User Options > Admin menu entry dropdown menu …
The TablePress menu item now shows near the top of the menu list …
You can also specify other plugin options in the “Plugin Options” screen, such as table formatting styles, default language, etc. If you don’t need to modify these settings, then just leave the default options.
With TablePress, tables are created and formatted within the plugin area. Tables are then inserted via a shortcode into your content. The table will then display after republishing or saving your pages or posts.
The benefit of working directly from the plugin is that you can easily change the information inside your tables without having to manually edit your pages. The plugin 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 the 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 the new table has been created, it will display in the “All Tables” list and get assigned a unique Shortcode ID …
The TablePress shortcode allows you to easily insert tables anywhere inside a post or page simply by inserting or copying and pasting the shortcode wherever you want your table to be displayed …
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 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” 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, make the background of consecutive rows alternate in colour, highlight a row when visitors hover their mouse over the table, show 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” area. You can insert images or links, hide, show, insert, delete and duplicate selected rows and columns, add new rows and columns, combine cells, etc …
You can also enable JavaScript library features in your tables that will allow your site users to sort, filter and search your table content, change the number of table rows showing on your site (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 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 update 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 the tables you have created will be displayed in this section. You can edit, see the shortcode, copy, delete, export and preview tables …
Using The TablePress Shortcode
You can embed a table into your page content using the TablePress shortcode.
Click on the Show Shortcode menu item under 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 the table to show then click the TablePress menu icon …
TablePress Menu Icon In 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 Text 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 post or page and click Insert Shortcode …
Your TablePress shortcode will be placed in the location you specified …
Publish the post or page to display your table contents …
As stated earlier, one of the great things about this plugin is that you can edit data after publishing the table without having to open your post or page. Change the content in the plugin area, then save the new table settings and refresh your content 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 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, select TablePress > Export a Table in the WP admin 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 file to your hard drive …
After editing and resaving your file, you can then re-import the table into WordPress.
To import a table into WordPress, go to your 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 resembling a webpage, or its own format. You can also import existing tables from the WP-Table Reloaded plugin
To import a table, select and enter the import source in the “Import Tables” area. You can also import multiple tables from a ZIP file and choose whether to import a table as a new table or write over an existing table.
To learn more about TablePress, including where to access documentation about extra 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 an extremely powerful time saving plugin that is free and will help you easily create and add tables into your WordPress posts and pages.
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"This is AMAZING! I had learnt about how to use WordPress previously, but this covers absolutely everything and more!! Incredible value! Thank you!" - Monique, Warrior Forum