The ability to easily add tables to your website can be very useful. Tables help you sort and present data to people in a way that makes your information easier to understand.
The WordPress visual editor is great, but there are some things that it won’t let you do by default, such as giving you the option to easily create tables.
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 WordPress users, this is simply not a practical option.
Fortunately, WordPress plugins let you do almost anything you can imagine, and creating tables is no exception.
In this tutorial you will learn how to easily create and add tables into your posts and pages without requiring knowledge of HTML or CSS or coding skills.
Adding Tables In Posts And Pages With WordPress
If you want to create and add tables into your WordPress content and don’t have the skills or knowledge to create tables using HTML or CSS, the tutorial below will show you how to do this using a FREE WordPress plugin called TablePress.
TablePress
A very powerful and time-saving plugin that makes creating, editing and managing tables in your WordPress posts and pages simple and easy is TablePress.
TablePress does not require you to have any knowledge or skills coding HTML, CSS, etc. The plugin lets you easily edit table data. You can add any kind of data to your tables.
An additional JavaScript library can be used to add features like sorting, pagination, filtering, and more for your visitors. You can easily insert tables into your posts and pages using shortcodes and even display these inside text widgets.
Tables can also be imported and exported from/to CSV files (e.g. from Excel), HTML files, and JSON formats.
This plugin was created by Tobias Bäthge and is licensed as Free Software under GNU General Public License 2 (GPL 2).
Using TablePress WordPress Plugin – Tutorial
To create and manage tables in WordPress, first install and activate the TablePress plugin.
You can download this plugin here:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/tablepress
Or install it from your Dashboard …
After installing and activating the plugin, you will see a new menu item in your main menu called TablePress …
Click on TablePress and choose Plugin Options from the submenu list …
The “Plugin Options” page controls your plugin 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. If you plan to use this plugin often, then you can position the menu option towards the top of your admin menu by specifying “Top-level (middle)” on the User Options > Admin menu entry dropdown menu …
The TablePress menu entry now appears at the top area of your menu …
You can also play with other plugin options in the “Plugin Options” area, such as table formatting styles, default language, and so on. Leave these options as they are if you don’t need to change things in this area.
With TablePress, tables are created and edited inside the plugin section. Tables are then placed via a shortcode into your pages. Your table will then display or update after republishing or saving your post.
The benefit of working directly from the plugin is that you can easily change the data inside your tables without having to open any of your pages. The plugin then updates all of your table information in all instances where the table has been added to your content.
To create a new table select TablePress > Add New Table …
Enter the 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 your new table has been created, it will get added to the “All Tables” list and get assigned a unique Shortcode ID …
The TablePress shortcode lets you 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 really easy.
In the “Table Content” section, just click in the cell and either type or paste the content you want to display. You can add text, images and format your content (e.g. add bold text, insert hyperlinks, etc …)
Once your new table is created, the plugin will display additional options for configuring your table.
For example, in the “Table Options” area you can specify 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 a visitor hovers 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 it has been created in the “Table Manipulation” area. You can perform various table operations, such as adding links and images, hiding, showing, inserting, deleting and duplicating selected columns and rows, adding new rows and columns, combining 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, set the number of table rows displayed on your post (and also allow visitors to 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 the table. Certain features like JavaScript options are disabled in preview mode, but will display when your post or page is published …
Remember to click the Save Changes button when finished to update your 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 section. You can edit, see the shortcode, copy, export, delete and preview tables …
How To Use The Shortcode
You embed a table into any pages and blog posts using 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 the table to show then click the TablePress menu icon …
TablePress Menu Icon In WordPress Visual Editor Screen
Note: You can also insert a table when working inside the “Text” area of the WP editor …
TablePress Menu Icon In WordPress Text Editor Screen
Clicking on the menu icon displays a list of your existing tables.
Select the table you want to insert into the content and click Insert Shortcode …
Your TablePress shortcode will be inserted into your content …
The table contents will display as soon as you publish your post or page …
As stated earlier, one of the great things about this plugin is that you can change things after publishing the table without having to open your post or page. Change the content in the plugin area, then save your 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 more data to an existing table, just export your current table, then add new data, 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, click on TablePress > Export a Table in the main 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 table file to your hard drive …
After changing and resaving your file, you can then reimport your table into WordPress.
To import a table, go to the Dashboard 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 JSON 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 compressed (ZIP) files and choose whether to import a table as a new table or to replace an existing table.
For more information about the plugin, including where to access the plugin documentation for additional features, get technical support for the plugin, 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 quite a powerful time saving free plugin will help you easily create and add tables into your WordPress posts and pages.
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