The ability to easily add tables to your website can be really handy. 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 it doesn’t do by default, 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 practical option.
Fortunately, you can do almost 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 content without requiring knowledge of HTML or CSS or coding skills.
How To Insert Tables In WordPress
To add tables into your WordPress content with no coding skills required, we’ll use a FREE plugin called TablePress.
TablePress
TablePress is a very powerful and time-saving plugin that makes creating, editing and managing tables in WordPress simple and easy.
TablePress does not require you to have any knowledge or skills coding HTML, CSS, etc. It provides a simple user interface that lets you easily edit table data. Your tables can contain any type of data, even formulas.
An additional JavaScript library can be used to add features like pagination, sorting, filtering, and more for your site visitors. You can easily include the tables into your posts and pages using shortcodes and display these inside text widgets.
You can also import and export a table from/to CSV files (e.g. from Excel), HTML files, and JSON.
The plugin was developed by Tobias Bäthge and is licensed as Free Software under GNU General Public License 2 (GPL 2).
How To Use TablePress Plugin For WordPress – Step-By-Step Tutorial
To create and manage tables in WordPress posts or pages, first install and activate the TablePress plugin.
You can download this plugin here:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/tablepress
Or install it directly from your WordPress Dashboard …
Once the plugin has been installed and activated, you will see a new menu item has been added to your main menu called TablePress …
Click on TablePress and choose Plugin Options from the submenu list …
The “Plugin Options” screen 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 WP admin menu.
Normally, the menu entry appears 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 Dashboard menu by specifying “Top-level (middle)” on the User Options > Admin menu entry dropdown menu …
The TablePress menu entry now shows near the top section of the admin menu …
You can also play with other settings in the “Plugin Options” area, such as table formatting styles, default language, etc. If you don’t need to change this section, then just leave the options as the default.
With TablePress, tables are created and edited inside the plugin section. Tables are then placed via a shortcode into your posts. The tables will then display or update after your post or page is saved.
The benefit of working directly from the plugin is that you can easily change the information in your tables without having to manually edit your pages and posts. The plugin then updates all of your table data inside all posts and pages where the table has been added to your content.
To create a new table select TablePress > Add New Table …
Enter a table name, a description (optional), and the number of rows and columns you want 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 display in the “All Tables” list and get assigned a unique Shortcode ID …
The TablePress shortcode lets you easily add tables anywhere in your content by simply typing or copying and pasting the shortcode wherever you want your table to display …
Once a new table has been created, adding content to your table is easy.
In the “Table Content” section, just click in the cell and type or paste your content. You can add text, images and format your content (e.g. bold or italicize words, 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 and the last row of the table to be the table footer, display alternate background colours on consecutive rows, highlight rows when a visitor hovers their mouse over the table, display the table name and description above or below the table, and more …
You can also edit your table content after it has been created in the “Table Manipulation” section. You can perform a range of different table edits, like 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 site visitors to sort, filter and search your table content, set the number of table rows showing on your page (and also allow visitors to change the number of rows displayed), display table information, etc …
You can preview your table anytime, by clicking the Preview button …
A preview window will open in your web browser allowing you to preview the table. Certain features such as the JavaScript options are disabled in preview mode, but will display when your post or page is published …
Remember to click the Save Changes button after you are done editing to update your table data …
To view a list of all your tables TablePress > All Tables …
All your tables are listed here. You can edit, see shortcodes, copy, export, delete and preview tables …
How To Use The TablePress Shortcode To Insert Tables Into Your Content
You can insert a table into posts and pages using a shortcode.
You can 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 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 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 HTML Editor Screen
Clicking on the menu icon opens a window containing a list of all tables.
Select the table you want to insert into the post or page and click Insert Shortcode …
Your TablePress shortcode will be inserted …
Publish your post or page to view the table contents …
As stated earlier, one of the great things about this plugin is that you can edit the contents of your table 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 post to view the updated information.
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 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, choose 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 changing and resaving your file, you can then easily reimport your 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 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” area. You can import multiple tables from a compressed (ZIP) file and choose whether to import tables as a new table or to replace an existing table.
To learn more about using the plugin, including where to access the plugin documentation for 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 time saving plugin that is free and will help you easily create and embed tables into your page content.
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