Being able to display 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 let you do, such as letting you create tables without having to learn code.
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 users, this is simply not a realistic option.
Fortunately, WordPress plugins let you do almost anything you can imagine, and adding tables to your content is no exception.
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn how to create and insert tables easily into your site’s pages without requiring knowledge of HTML or CSS or coding skills.
How To Add Tables In WordPress Content
To create and add tables to your WordPress posts or pages with no HTML or CSS knowledge required, we’ll use a FREE WordPress plugin called TablePress.
TablePress – WP Plugin
A very powerful and time-saving WordPress plugin that makes creating, editing and managing tables in WordPress a very simple and easy process is TablePress.
TablePress requires no knowledge of HTML, CSS, etc. The plugin lets you easily edit table data. Your tables can contain any type of data, even formulas.
An additional JavaScript library can be used to add features like pagination, sorting, filtering, and more for your visitors. You can easily include the tables into your pages and blog posts using shortcodes and even display tables inside text widgets.
You can also import and export tables 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 manage tables in WordPress, install and activate the TablePress plugin.
You can download this plugin here:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/tablepress
Or install it directly from within your own Dashboard …
Once the plugin has been installed and activated, a new menu item will display on your WordPress admin menu called TablePress …
Click on TablePress and select Plugin Options from the list of submenus …
The “Plugin Options” section affects the plugin’s styling and display settings …
For example, in the “User Options” section, you can specify where the TablePress menu entry appears on your admin menu.
By default, the menu item appears somewhere around the middle of your menu bar. If you plan to use this plugin often, then you can position the menu item near the top of your admin menu by choosing “Top-level (middle)” on the User Options > Admin menu entry dropdown menu …
The TablePress menu entry will now show closer towards the top section of the admin menu …
You can also play with other options in the “Plugin Options” tab, like table formatting styles, default language, etc. Leave the settings as they are if you don’t need to change things in this section.
With TablePress, tables are created and formatted inside the plugin section. Tables are then placed via a shortcode into your text. Your table will then display or update after publishing or updating your page.
The benefit of working directly from the plugin is that you can easily modify the data inside your tables without having to touch your posts. TablePress then updates all of your table data everywhere where the table has been added to your content.
To create a new table select TablePress > Add New Table …
Enter the table 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 table you create at anytime…
Once the new table is created, it will display in the “All Tables” list and get assigned a unique Shortcode ID …
The TablePress shortcode allows you to easily add tables anywhere in your content by simply typing or copying and pasting the shortcode wherever you want your tables to be displayed …
Once a new table has been created, adding content to your table is really 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 format your content (e.g. add bold text, insert links, 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 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, print 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” section. You can perform a number of table operations, such as adding links or images, hiding, showing, inserting, deleting and duplicating selected rows and columns, adding new columns and rows, combining cells, etc …
You can also enable JavaScript library features in your tables, such as allowing site visitors to sort, filter and search your table content, change the number of table rows displayed on your pages (and also allow visitors 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 on your screen allowing you to preview your table. Certain features such as the JavaScript options are disabled in preview mode, but will display when your post or page is published …
Remember to click the Save Changes button after you are done editing to update your 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 area. You can edit, see shortcodes, copy, delete, export and preview your tables …
Using The TablePress Shortcode To Embed Tables Into Your Pages And Posts
You can insert tables into pages and blog posts with a shortcode.
Click on the Show Shortcode menu item under 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 appear then click the TablePress menu icon …
TablePress Menu Icon In Visual Editor Screen
Note: You can also insert a table when working inside the “Text” area of the editor …
TablePress Menu Icon In WordPress HTML Editor Screen
Clicking on the menu icon opens a window containing a list of all the available tables you have created.
Select the table you want to embed in your content and click Insert Shortcode …
Your TablePress shortcode will be added to your content …
Publish the post or page to view your table contents …
As stated earlier, one of the great things about this plugin is that you can edit things after publishing the table without having to edit your post or page. Edit the content in the plugin area, then save your new table settings and refresh your page to view the updated content.
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 items, 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 admin menu …
In the “Export Tables” section, select the table(s) you would like 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 editing and resaving your table file, you can then easily reimport the table into WordPress.
To import a table into WordPress, go to the menu and choose 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. 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” section. You can also import multiple tables from a compressed (ZIP) file and choose whether to import tables as a new table or to replace an existing table.
For more information about using TablePress, including where to access documentation about additional features, 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 free plugin will help you easily create and add tables into your site content.
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