Being able to display tables on your website can be very useful. Tables help you sort and present 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 the default editor doesn’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 most non-technical users, this is simply not a realistic option.
Fortunately, WordPress plugins let you do almost anything you can imagine, and inserting tables into your content with the click of a mouse is no exception.
In this tutorial you will learn how to create and insert tables easily into your content without requiring knowledge of HTML or CSS or coding skills.
How To Add Tables In WordPress
To create and add tables to your WordPress posts or pages with no HTML or CSS knowledge required, we’ll use a FREE plugin called TablePress.
TablePress
A powerful and time-saving plugin for creating, editing and managing tables in WordPress is TablePress.
TablePress doesn’t require you to have any knowledge of HTML, CSS, etc. The plugin 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 pagination, sorting, filtering, and more for visitors. You can easily include the tables into your post content using shortcodes and even display tables inside text widgets.
You can also import and export a table from/to CSV files (e.g. from Excel), HTML files, and JSON formats.
The plugin was developed by Tobias Bäthge and is licensed as Free Software under GNU General Public License 2 (GPL 2).
Using TablePress – Step-By-Step Tutorial
To create and add tables to WordPress with TablePress, install and activate the TablePress plugin.
Download the plugin here:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/tablepress
Or install it from within your own Dashboard …
After installing and activating the plugin, you will see a new menu item added to your WordPress admin menu called TablePress …
Click on TablePress and choose Plugin Options from the submenu list …
The “Plugin Options” screen affects the plugin’s styling and display settings …
For example, in the “User Options” section, you can modify the position of the TablePress menu entry in your Dashboard menu.
By default, the menu entry displays around the middle of your menu bar. If you plan to use this plugin often, then you can easily position the menu item towards the top of your Dashboard menu by selecting “Top-level (middle)” in the User Options > Admin menu entry dropdown menu …
The TablePress menu entry now shows at the top section of your admin menu …
You can also specify other options in the “Plugin Options” section, such as table formatting styles, default language, and so on. If you don’t need to modify these settings, then just leave the default options.
With TablePress, you create and edit your tables within the plugin section. Tables are then placed via a shortcode into your pages and posts. Your table will then display when your post or page is published.
The advantage of working directly from the plugin is that you can easily update the information inside your tables without having to touch your pages and posts. The plugin then updates all of your table data in all locations where the table has been added to your content.
To add a new table select TablePress > Add New Table …
Type in the table name, a description (optional), and the number of rows and columns you would like for the 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 your tables at anytime…
Once the new table has been created, it will appear in 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 your tables to be displayed …
Once you have created a new table, adding content to it is easy.
In the “Table Content” section, click in 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, 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 and the last row of the table to be the table footer, make the background of consecutive rows alternate in colour, highlight rows when visitors hover 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 it has been created in the “Table Manipulation” section. You can perform a range of table edits, like inserting links and images, hiding, showing, inserting, deleting and cloning selected rows and columns, adding new rows and columns, 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 showing on your post (and let users specify 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 allowing you to preview your 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 data …
Once you have created one or more tables, you can view a list of all your tables by choosing TablePress > All Tables …
Your tables are listed here. You can edit, see shortcodes, copy, export, delete and preview your tables …
Using The Shortcode To Embed Tables Into Your Content
You embed tables into your pages and blog posts with the TablePress shortcode.
Click on the Show Shortcode menu item below the table title to get the shortcode …
The plugin also adds a shortcode menu icon to your WordPress 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 embedded then click the TablePress menu icon …
TablePress Menu Icon In Visual Editor Screen
Note: You can also add a table when working in the “Text” area of the editor …
TablePress Menu Icon In Text Editor Screen
Clicking on the menu icon opens a window containing a list of all tables.
Select the table you want to embed in the content and click Insert Shortcode …
Your TablePress shortcode will be inserted into your content …
Publish the post or page to display the table contents …
As stated earlier, one of the great things about this plugin is that you can change information after publishing the table without having to edit your post or page. Just tweak the content in the plugin area, then save the new table settings and refresh your page to view the updated content.
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 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, select TablePress > Export a Table in the admin menu …
In the “Export Tables” section, choose the table(s) you want 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 table file to your hard drive …
After changing and resaving your file, you can then easily re-import the table into WordPress.
To import a table, go to your admin 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, 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 select whether to import a table as a new table or replace an existing table.
For more information about the plugin, 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 quite a useful and feature-rich free plugin will help you easily create and embed tables into your page content.
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"This is an awesome training series. I have a pretty good understanding of WordPress already, but this is helping me to move somewhere from intermediate to advanced user!" - Kim Lednum