Being able to easily add tables on your pages can be very useful. 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 won’t let you do, like being able to 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 feasible option.
Fortunately, you can do almost anything you need done on a WordPress site with plugins, and adding tables to your content is no exception.
In this tutorial you will learn how to easily create and add tables into your pages and blog posts without requiring knowledge of HTML or CSS or coding skills.
How To Add Tables In WordPress Posts And Pages
If you want to create and add tables to your WordPress posts or pages without touching code, then the tutorial below will show you how to easily add tables into your WordPress posts and pages using a FREE plugin called TablePress.
TablePress
A very powerful and time-saving WordPress plugin that makes creating, editing and managing tables in WordPress a very simple and easy process is TablePress.
TablePress requires no knowledge of HTML, CSS, etc. It provides a simple interface that allows you to easily edit table data. Tables can contain any type of data, even formulas.
An additional JavaScript library can be used to add features like sorting, pagination, filtering, and more for your visitors. You can easily include the tables into your post content using shortcodes and display these inside text widgets.
You can also import and export tables 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 – Step-By-Step Tutorial
To create and add tables to WordPress posts or pages, install and activate the TablePress plugin.
Download the plugin here:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/tablepress
Or install it from your WP Dashboard …
Once the plugin has been installed and activated, a new menu item will be added to your WP admin menu called TablePress …
Click on TablePress and choose Plugin Options from the list of submenus …
The “Plugin Options” section controls your plugin styling and display settings …
For example, in the “User Options” section, you can change where the TablePress menu entry appears on your WP admin menu.
Normally, the menu entry displays somewhere near the middle of your menu column. If you plan to use this plugin often, then you can position the menu option towards the top of the admin menu by selecting “Top-level (middle)” on the User Options > Admin menu entry dropdown menu …
The TablePress menu item now displays at the top section of the menu list …
You can also specify other plugin options in the “Plugin Options” area, such as formatting styles for your tables, default language, and so on. If you don’t need to change this section, simply leave the options as the default.
With TablePress, you create and edit tables inside the plugin area. Tables are then added via a shortcode into your text. Your table will then display when republishing or saving your pages or posts.
The benefit of doing this is that you can easily change the data inside your tables without having to manually edit your pages and posts. TablePress then updates all of your table data in all instances where the table has been added to your content.
To add a new table select TablePress > Add New Table …
Enter the name, an optional description, 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 edit the name, description and size of any tables you create at anytime…
Once the new table has been created, it will appear in the “All Tables” list and get assigned a unique Shortcode ID …
The TablePress shortcode lets you easily insert tables anywhere in your content simply by inserting or copying and pasting the shortcode wherever you want to display your table …
Once you have created a new table, adding content to it is very 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. 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 and the last row of the table to be the table footer, make the background of consecutive rows alternate in color, highlight a row 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 modify your table after creating it in the “Table Manipulation” area. You can perform a range of different table operations, like adding images or links, 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, such as allowing your visitors to sort, filter and search your table content, set the number of table rows displayed on your page (and also allow users 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 displaying the table. Certain features like JavaScript options are disabled in preview mode, but will display when your table is published …
Remember to click the Save Changes button when finished to update your table information …
Once you have created one or more tables, you can view a list of all your tables by choosing TablePress > All Tables …
A list of all the tables you have created will be displayed in this screen. You can edit, see shortcodes, copy, export, delete and preview your tables …
Using The TablePress Shortcode To Embed Tables Into Your Content
You can insert tables inside content with a shortcode.
You can get the shortcode for your tables by clicking 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 Visual Editor Screen
Note: You can also add a table when working in the “Text” area of the WordPress editor …
TablePress Menu Icon In HTML Editor Screen
Clicking on the menu icon displays a list of all the available tables you have created.
Select the table you want to add to the post or page and click Insert Shortcode …
Your TablePress shortcode will be added to your content …
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 this plugin is that you can edit information 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 page to view the updated information.
Another great time-saving feature of this plugin, is that if you plan to keep adding 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 your WP 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 file to your hard drive …
After editing and resaving your file, you can then easily reimport your table into WordPress.
To import a table into WordPress, go to the admin menu and 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 resembling a webpage, 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 source in the “Import Tables” area. You can also import multiple tables from compressed (ZIP) files and select whether to import a table as a new table or write over an existing table.
For more information about TablePress, including where to access documentation about additional features, or 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 powerful and feature-rich free plugin will help you easily create and embed tables into your site content.
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