Being able to provide visitors with tables on your website can be very useful. Tables are great for sorting and presenting data to visitors in a way that makes your information easier to understand.
WordPress offers a feature-rich visual editor, but there are some things that it won’t do by default, such as giving you the option to create tables without having to learn code.
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 simply not a practical option.
Fortunately, you can do just about anything you can imagine on a WordPress site with plugins, and creating tables is no exception.
In this tutorial you will learn how to create and add tables easily into your site’s pages with no coding skills required.
How To Easily Insert Tables Into Your Content With No Programming Skills Required
Follow the tutorial below to learn how to add tables in WordPress using 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 your WordPress posts and pages a very simple and easy process is TablePress.
TablePress doesn’t require you to have any knowledge or skills coding HTML, CSS, etc. The plugin lets you easily edit your table data. You can add any kind of data, even formulas to your tables.
An additional JavaScript library can be used to include features like sorting, pagination, filtering, and more for visitors. You can easily insert tables into your content using shortcodes and display tables using text widgets.
Tables can also be imported and exported from/to CSV files (e.g. from Excel), HTML files, and JSON formats.
The plugin 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 WordPress Plugin – Step-By-Step Tutorial
To create and manage tables in WordPress using TablePress, first install and activate the TablePress plugin.
You can download the plugin here:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/tablepress
Or install it directly from within your Dashboard …
Once the plugin has been installed and activated, you will see a new menu item on your WP admin menu called TablePress …
Click on TablePress and select Plugin Options from the submenu list …
The “Plugin Options” area controls your plugin styling and display settings …
For example, in the “User Options” section, you can modify where the TablePress menu entry appears on your admin menu.
By default, the menu entry displays somewhere in the middle of your menu bar. If you plan to use this plugin often, then you can position the menu option near the top of the admin menu by specifying “Top-level (middle)” in the User Options > Admin menu entry dropdown menu …
The TablePress menu item will now display at the top of the menu …
You can also specify other settings in the “Plugin Options” screen, like formatting styles for your tables, default language, and so on. If you don’t need to modify these settings, just leave the default options.
With TablePress, tables are created and modified inside the plugin area. Tables are then placed via a shortcode into your pages and posts. Your tables will then display when your content is republished.
The advantage of doing this is that you can easily change the data in your tables without having to open any of your pages. The plugin then updates all of your table information inside all posts and pages where the table has been added to your content.
To create a new table select TablePress > Add New Table …
Type in the 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, and 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 is created, it will appear in the “All Tables” list and be assigned a unique Shortcode ID …
The TablePress shortcode allows you to easily add tables anywhere inside a post or page by simply typing or copying and pasting the shortcode wherever you want to display a table …
Once you have created a new table, 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 …)
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 rows when a visitor hovers their mouse over the table, print the table name and description above or below the table, and more …
You can also edit your table content after creating it in the “Table Manipulation” section. You can insert images and links, hide, show, insert, delete and duplicate selected columns and rows, add new rows and columns, combine cells, etc …
You can also enable JavaScript library features in your tables that will allow visitors to sort, filter and search your table content, set the number of table rows showing on your content (and let users specify 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 web browser displaying the table. Certain features such as the JavaScript options are disabled in preview mode, but will display when your post or page is published …
Click the Save Changes button after you are done editing to save your table information …
After you have created one or more tables, you can view a list of all your tables by selecting TablePress > All Tables …
All your tables are listed here. You can edit, see the shortcode, copy, delete, export and preview your tables …
How To Use The TablePress Shortcode
You insert a table inside any posts and pages using the TablePress shortcode.
Get the shortcode for your tables by clicking 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 your table to appear 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 HTML Editor Screen
Clicking on the menu icon brings up a list of all existing tables.
Select the table you want to add to the content and click Insert Shortcode …
Your TablePress shortcode will be inserted into your content …
Publish your post or page to display your table contents …
As stated earlier, one of the great things about TablePress is that you can change the contents of your table after publishing the table without having to edit your post or page. Change the content in the plugin area, then save the new table settings and refresh your post 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 information, make changes, etc. You can then re-import your table file with the news changes and your table content will be automatically updated throughout your site.
To export a table, select TablePress > Export a Table in the WP admin menu …
In the “Export Tables” section, select the table(s) you would like 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 changing and resaving your file, you can then reimport your table into WordPress.
To import a table into WordPress from your hard drive, 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 format.
To import a table, select and enter the source in the “Import Tables” area. You can import multiple tables from compressed (ZIP) files and choose whether to import a table as a new table or write over an existing table.
To learn more about the plugin, including where to access documentation about extra features, or get plugin support, contact the plugin developer, etc., click on the “About Tab” in the plugin admin section, or select TablePress > About TablePress …
As you can see, TablePress is an extremely useful and feature-rich free plugin will help you easily create and embed tables into your site content.
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