The ability to easily add tables to 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.
The WordPress visual editor offers many great features, but there are some things that the default editor doesn’t do, such as letting you create tables without having to learn code.
Although you can create tables manually in WordPress if you have knowledge of HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), for many non-technical users, this is simply not a feasible 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 step-by-step tutorial you will learn how to create and insert tables easily into your posts and pages with no coding skills required.
Adding Tables In Posts And Pages In WordPress
To add tables into your WordPress content without touching code, we’ll use a FREE plugin called TablePress.
TablePress – WP Plugin
A powerful and time-saving plugin for creating, editing and managing tables in WordPress is TablePress.
TablePress requires no knowledge or skills coding HTML, CSS, etc. It 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 site users. You can easily insert tables into your page content using shortcodes and even display tables using text widgets.
Tables can also be imported and exported from/to CSV files (e.g. from Excel), HTML files, and JSON.
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 Plugin For WP – Tutorial
To create and manage tables in WordPress, first install and activate the TablePress plugin.
Download this plugin here:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/tablepress
Or install it directly from your own WP Dashboard …
After installing and activating the plugin, a new menu item will display on your Dashboard menu called TablePress …
Click on TablePress and select Plugin Options from the submenu list …
The “Plugin Options” area affects the plugin’s behavior in different areas of your site …
For example, in the “User Options” section, you can modify where the TablePress menu entry appears on your Dashboard 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 easily position the menu item near the top of your menu by choosing “Top-level (middle)” in the User Options > Admin menu entry dropdown menu …
The TablePress menu entry now appears near the top area of your menu list …
You can also play with other plugin options in the “Plugin Options” screen, like formatting styles for your tables, default language, and so on. Leave all settings as they are if you don’t need to change things in this section.
With TablePress, tables are created and formatted within the plugin screen. Tables are then inserted via a shortcode into your WordPress posts and pages. Your tables will then display or update when your content is published.
The great thing about doing this is that you can easily change the information in your tables without having to open any of your pages and posts. 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 a 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 your table at anytime…
Once your new table is created, it will be listed in the “All Tables” list and be 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 to display a table …
Once a new table has been created, adding content to the table is easy.
In the “Table Content” section, just click inside the cell and type or paste the content you want to display. You can add text, images and format your content (e.g. add bold text, insert links, etc …)
Once your new table is created, the plugin will display a number of additional options that will 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 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 edit your table content after creating it in the “Table Manipulation” area. You can add links or images, hide, show, insert, delete and clone selected rows and columns, add new columns and rows, combine cells, etc …
You can also enable JavaScript library features in your tables, such as allowing your site users to sort, filter and search your table content, change the number of table rows showing on your post (and let users 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 displaying your table. Certain features like JavaScript options are disabled in preview mode, but will display once your table is published …
Remember to click the Save Changes button when finished to update your table data …
After you have created one or more tables, you can view a list of all your tables by going to TablePress > All Tables …
Your tables are displayed in a list. You can edit, see the shortcode, copy, delete, export and preview your tables …
Using The TablePress Shortcode
You embed tables into your posts and pages with 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 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 the table to show then click the TablePress menu icon …
TablePress Menu Icon In Visual Editor Screen
Note: You can also insert a table when working in the “Text” area of the editor …
TablePress Menu Icon In WordPress Text Editor Screen
Clicking on the menu icon brings up a list of your available tables.
Select the table you want to insert into your content and click Insert Shortcode …
Your TablePress shortcode will be inserted …
Publish your post or page to display the table contents …
As stated earlier, one of the great things about TablePress is that you can edit data 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 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 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, select TablePress > Export a Table in the admin menu …
In the “Export Tables” section, choose the table(s) you want 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 reimport your table into WordPress.
To import a table into WordPress, go to the sidebar menu and select TablePress > Import a Table …
TablePress can import tables from existing data, such as CSV file data, from a spreadsheet application, an HTML file, or its own JSON format.
To import a table, select and enter the source in the “Import Tables” section. You can import multiple tables from compressed (ZIP) files and choose whether to import a table as a new table or replace an existing table.
To learn more about using TablePress, including accessing 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 a very useful time saving free plugin will help you easily create and add tables into your page content.
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"These tutorials have so much information and are easy to understand. If you use WordPress or plan to in the future these will help you with everything you need to know." - Valisa (Mesa, Arizona)