Being able to easily add tables on your website can be really handy. Tables are great for sorting and presenting data to visitors in a way that makes your information easier to understand.
The WordPress visual editor is great, but there are some things that the default editor doesn’t do, like being able to 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 simply not a feasible option.
Fortunately, WordPress plugins give users almost unlimited expansion capabilities, and adding tables to your content is no exception.
In this tutorial you will learn how to create and add tables easily into your posts and pages with no coding skills required.
How To Insert Tables Into Your Content In WordPress
To create and add tables to your WordPress posts or pages without touching code, we’ll use a FREE WordPress plugin called TablePress.
WP Plugin – TablePress
A powerful and time-saving WordPress plugin that makes creating, editing and managing tables in your WordPress posts and pages simple and easy is TablePress.
TablePress requires no knowledge or skills coding HTML, CSS, etc. It provides a simple interface that allows you to easily edit your table data. You can add any type of data, even formulas to your tables.
An additional JavaScript library can be used to add features like pagination, sorting, filtering, and more for site users. You can easily insert tables into your content using shortcodes and 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 developed by Tobias Bäthge and is licensed as Free Software under GNU General Public License 2 (GPL 2).
How To Use TablePress – Step-By-Step Tutorial
To create and add tables to WordPress posts and pages, install and activate the TablePress plugin.
You can download the plugin here:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/tablepress
Or install it directly from your Dashboard …
After installing and activating the plugin, 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” screen controls your plugin styling and display settings …
For example, in the “User Options” section, you can change the position of the TablePress menu entry in your WP admin menu.
By default, the menu entry displays around the middle of your menu bar. If you plan to use this plugin a lot, then you can easily position the menu item closer to the top of your menu by specifying “Top-level (middle)” in the User Options > Admin menu entry dropdown menu …
The TablePress menu entry will now show towards the top area of the admin menu …
You can also play with other settings in the “Plugin Options” area, such as table formatting styles, default language, etc. Leave all settings as they are if you don’t need to change things in this section.
With TablePress, tables are created and modified inside the plugin area. Tables are then added via a shortcode into your WordPress posts and pages. The tables will then display or update when your post or page is saved.
The advantage of doing this is that you can easily change the data inside your tables without having to open any of your posts and 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 the table name, a description (optional), and the number of rows and columns you want 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 change the name, description and size of any tables you create at anytime…
Once your new table is 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 table to display …
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. bold or italicize words, insert links, etc …)
Once your new table is created, displays a number of additional options that will allow you to 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 color, 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 information after creating it in the “Table Manipulation” subsection. You can perform a range of different edits on your table, such as adding links or images, hiding, showing, inserting, deleting and cloning 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 visitors to sort, filter and search your table content, set the number of table rows showing on your post (and let visitors 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 in your web browser displaying 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 save your table information …
After you have created one or more tables, you can view a list of all your tables by choosing TablePress > All Tables …
All the tables you have created are listed here. You can edit, see shortcodes, copy, delete, export and preview tables …
How To Use The TablePress Shortcode
You can insert tables into content using a shortcode.
Click on the Show Shortcode menu item under your 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 cursor where you want your 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 inside the “Text” area of the WordPress editor …
TablePress Menu Icon In Text Editor Screen
Clicking on the menu icon brings up a list of all the available tables you have created.
Select the table you want to insert into the post or page and click Insert Shortcode …
Your TablePress shortcode will be placed in the location you specified …
Your 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 edit things after publishing the table without having to open your post or page. Change 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 more 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 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) 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 editing and resaving the table file, you can then re-import the 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 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 select whether to import tables as a new table or replace an existing table.
For more information about using the plugin, including where to access documentation about extra features, get technical support for the plugin, 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 an extremely useful and feature-rich free plugin will help you easily create and add tables into your page content.
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"I have used the tutorials to teach all of my clients and it has probably never been so easy for everyone to learn WordPress ... Now I don't need to buy all these very expensive video courses that often don't deliver what they promise." - Stefan Wendt, Internet Marketing Success Group