Being able to display tables on your website can be really handy. Tables are great for sorting and presenting data to people 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 let you do by default, such as letting you 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 most non-technical WordPress users, this is not a practical option.
Fortunately, WordPress plugins give users almost unlimited expansion capabilities, and creating tables is no exception.
In this tutorial you will learn how to easily create and add tables into your WordPress posts and pages with no coding skills required.
How To Add Tables In Posts And Pages In WordPress
Follow the tutorial below to learn how to easily add tables into your WordPress posts and pages using a FREE plugin called TablePress.
WordPress Plugin – TablePress
A powerful and time-saving plugin for creating, editing and managing tables in WordPress is TablePress.
TablePress requires no knowledge or skills coding HTML, CSS, etc. The plugin lets you easily edit your table data. You can add any type of data to tables.
An additional JavaScript library can be used to add features like pagination, sorting, filtering, and more for site users. You can easily include the tables into your content using shortcodes and even display tables using text widgets.
You can also import and export a table from/to CSV files (e.g. from Excel), HTML files, and JSON formats.
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 posts or pages, first 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, you will see a new menu item in your main menu called TablePress …
Click on TablePress and choose Plugin Options from the list of submenus …
The “Plugin Options” area affects the plugin’s behavior in different areas of your site …
For example, in the “User Options” section, you can specify where the TablePress menu entry appears on your Dashboard menu.
Normally, the menu entry 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 close to the top of your Dashboard menu by choosing “Top-level (middle)” on the User Options > Admin menu entry dropdown menu …
The TablePress menu item now displays closer towards the top section of the menu …
You can also play with other options in the “Plugin Options” screen, like table formatting styles, default language, and so on. Leave these options as they are if you don’t need to change things in this section.
With TablePress, you create and edit tables within the plugin area. Tables are then placed via a shortcode into your pages and posts. The table will then display when saving and publishing your content.
The benefit of working directly from the plugin is that you can easily update the information inside your tables without having to manually edit your pages. 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 …
Type in a 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 change the name, description and size of any table you create at anytime…
Once the new table has been created, it will be listed in the “All Tables” list and get assigned a unique Shortcode ID …
The TablePress shortcode allows you to easily insert tables anywhere in your content by simply inserting or copying and pasting the shortcode wherever you want your tables to display …
Once a new table has been created, adding content to it is very easy.
In the “Table Content” section, just click in the cell and either type or paste your content. You can add text, images and HTML formatting to your content (e.g. bold or italicize words, 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 specify 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 color, 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 creating it in the “Table Manipulation” subsection. You can perform a range of different edits on your table, like inserting links and images, hiding, showing, inserting, deleting and cloning selected columns and rows, adding new columns and rows, combining cells, etc …
You can also enable JavaScript library features in your tables, such as allowing visitors to sort, filter and search your table content, change the number of table rows showing on your site (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 on the Preview button …
A preview window will open on your web browser allowing you to preview the table. Certain features like 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 update your new table information …
After you have created one or more tables, you can view a list of all your tables by going to 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 tables …
Using The TablePress Shortcode
You embed tables into your pages and posts using a shortcode.
You can get the shortcode for your tables by clicking on the Show Shortcode menu item below your table title to get the shortcode …
The plugin also adds a shortcode menu icon to your WordPress content 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 inserted then click the TablePress menu icon …
TablePress Menu Icon In WordPress Visual Editor Screen
Note: You can also add a table when working in the “Text” area of the editor …
TablePress Menu Icon In WordPress Text Editor Screen
Clicking on the menu icon displays a list of all the available tables you have created.
Select the table you want to embed in the post or page and click Insert Shortcode …
Your TablePress shortcode will be placed in the location you specified …
Your table and table contents will display as soon as you publish your post or page …
As stated earlier, one of the great things about TablePress is that you can change data after publishing the table without having to open your post or page. Tweak the content in the plugin area, then save your new table settings and refresh your content 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, 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 a table, click on TablePress > Export a Table in the 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 file to your hard drive …
After editing and resaving your table file, you can then easily reimport your table into WordPress.
To import a table into WordPress, 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 source in the “Import Tables” area. You can import multiple tables from a compressed (ZIP) file and choose whether to import tables as a new table or write over an existing table.
For more information about using TablePress, including accessing documentation about extra 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 plugin that is free and will help you easily create and insert tables into your WordPress posts and pages.
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