Being able to display 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.
WordPress offers a feature-rich visual editor, but there are some things that the default editor doesn’t let you do, such as giving you the option 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 many non-technical WordPress users, this is simply not a realistic 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 tutorial you will learn how to create and insert tables easily into your content without requiring knowledge of HTML or CSS or coding skills.
How To Create And Insert Tables Into Posts And Pages In WordPress
To add tables into your WordPress content without touching code, we’ll use a FREE WordPress plugin called TablePress.
WP Plugin – TablePress
A very powerful and time-saving WordPress plugin for creating, editing and managing tables in WordPress is TablePress.
TablePress requires no knowledge or skills coding HTML, CSS, etc. The plugin provides a simple user interface that allows you to easily edit your table data. You can add any kind of data, even formulas to tables.
An additional JavaScript library can be used to include features like pagination, sorting, filtering, and more for visitors. You can include the tables into your posts and pages using shortcodes and even display tables using text widgets.
You can also import and export a table 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 WordPress – Tutorial
To create and add tables to WordPress, install and activate the TablePress plugin.
You can download this plugin here:
http://wordpress.org/extend/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 added to your WP admin menu called TablePress …
Click on TablePress and select Plugin Options from the list of submenus …
The “Plugin Options” area 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 item displays somewhere in the middle of your menu column. If you plan to use this plugin often, then you can easily position the menu option near the top of your admin menu by choosing “Top-level (middle)” in the User Options > Admin menu entry dropdown menu …
The TablePress menu item will now show close to the top of your menu list …
You can also specify other settings in the “Plugin Options” tab, like table formatting styles, default language, and so on. If you don’t need to modify this section, just leave the default options.
With TablePress, tables are created and formatted within the plugin screen. Tables are then inserted via a shortcode into your posts. 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 update the data in your tables without having to open any of your posts. 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 a table 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, then 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 the new table has been created, it will be listed in the “All Tables” list and get assigned a unique Shortcode ID …
The TablePress shortcode allows you to easily add tables anywhere in your content by simply inserting or copying and pasting the shortcode wherever you want your tables to be displayed …
Once a new table has been created, adding content to your table is easy.
In the “Table Content” section, click inside the cell and type or paste your content. You can add text, images and format your content (e.g. add bold text, insert links, etc …)
After your new table has been created, the plugin will display additional options for configuring your table.
For example, in the “Table Options” area 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, display alternate background colors on consecutive rows, highlight rows when visitors hover their mouse over the table, show the table name and description above or below the table, and more …
You can also edit your table information after it has been created in the “Table Manipulation” section. You can add images and links, hide, show, insert, delete and clone selected rows and columns, add new rows and columns, 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, set the number of table rows displayed on your posts (and also allow users to change the number of rows displayed), display table information, etc …
You can preview your table anytime, by clicking on the Preview button …
A preview window will open in your browser displaying the table. Certain features such as the JavaScript options are disabled in preview mode, but will display once your post or page is published …
Remember to click the Save Changes button after you are done editing 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 …
Your tables are displayed in a list. You can edit, see the shortcode, copy, delete, export and preview tables …
Using The TablePress Shortcode To Insert Tables Into Your Pages And Posts
You can insert tables into your page content with a shortcode.
You can get the shortcode for your tables by clicking on the Show Shortcode menu item under your 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 mouse cursor where you want the table to be inserted 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 WP editor …
TablePress Menu Icon In WordPress HTML Editor Screen
Clicking on the menu icon displays a list of your existing tables.
Select the table you want to add to your post or page and click Insert Shortcode …
Your TablePress shortcode will be placed in the location you specified …
The 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 change data after publishing the table without having to open your post or page. Edit 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 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 an existing table, click on TablePress > Export a Table in your WP admin menu …
In the “Export Tables” section, select the table(s) you would like to export (tip: 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, go to your admin menu and choose 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 import source in the “Import Tables” area. You can also import multiple tables from a ZIP file and select whether to import tables as a new table or replace an existing table.
To learn more about the plugin, including accessing documentation about extra features, get plugin support, 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 useful time saving free plugin will help you easily create and embed tables into your page content.
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Disclaimer: This site is not associated with WordPress or any of the WordPress products written about on this site. We may derive a financial benefit from sales of products advertised, reviewed or linked to from this site. The product images used in this review have been sourced from the plugin’s own website.
Originally posted 2015-06-03 12:30:56.
