When editing posts or pages, use the “TablePress table” block in the WordPress block editor to insert TablePress tables that you have created or imported.

The Shortcode

[table id=N /]Code language: JSON / JSON with Comments (json)

can be used to display a table in a post, on a page, or in a text widget, in cases where using the “TablePress table” block is not possible or desired.

The Shortcode can have the following parameters. All parameters can be added in arbitrary order, like

[table id=1 alternating_row_colors=false table_head=false /]Code language: JSON / JSON with Comments (json)

If a parameter is added, it overwrites the corresponding Table Option from the “Edit” screen of that table!

For most use cases, it is recommended to change the setting in question by using the corresponding checkbox on the “Edit” screen of the table.

id (string) (required)

The ID of the table to show (can be seen on the “All Tables” or the “Edit” screen).

column_widths (string) (optional)

string with column widths, separated by the |-symbol (pipe)
examples:

column_widths="40px|50px|30px|40px"

or

column_widths="20%|60%|20%"

alternating_row_colors (boolean) (optional)

whether the table shall get alternating row colors (“zebra striping”) (see the CSS classes odd and even)

row_hover (boolean) (optional)

whether table rows shall be highlighted with a different background color, if the mouse hovers over them

table_head (boolean) (optional)

whether the first row will get <th> HTML tags inside a <thead> HTML tag

first_column_th (boolean) (optional)

whether the first column will get <th> HTML tags (there is no checkbox for this on the “Edit” screen!)

table_foot (boolean) (optional)

whether the last row will use <th> HTML tags inside a <tfoot> HTML tag

print_name (boolean) (optional)

whether the name of the table shall be printed above/below the table

print_name_position (string) (optional)

position for printing the table name: can be “above” or “below”

print_description (boolean) (optional)

whether the description of the table shall be printed above/below the table

print_description_position (string) (optional)

position for printing the table description: can be “above” or “below”

use_datatables (boolean) (optional)

whether the DataTables JavaScript library (a jQuery plugin) shall be used with this table (will only work, if the first row gets <th> HTML tags (either by the setting on the table’s “Edit” screen or by the Shortcode parameter)

datatables_sort, datatables_paginate, datatables_lengthchange, datatables_filter, datatables_info (boolean) (optional)

whether the corresponding feature of the DataTables JS library shall be activated for this table (more information in the DataTables section or on the DataTables website)

show_rows, hide_rows, show_columns, hide_columns (string) (optional)

These parameters can be used to overwrite visibility settings in the backend on a per-Shortcode basis.
Example:

hide_columns="1,2,3" show_rows="4,5,6"

will hide the first three columns and show rows 4, 5 and 6, regardless on what visibility setting they have in the backend. Instead of adding each row or column number manually, there’s also a parameter value “all” that will affect all rows/columns. They can also be used at the same time, if needed:

hide_columns="3,4,5" show_columns="8,9"

cellspacing, cellpadding, border (integer) (optional)

Corresponds to the parameters in

<table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0">
<tbody>
  <tr>
    <td>...</td>
  </tr>
</tbody>
</table>

By default those are not set as the setting can be better influenced with CSS. In some rare cases they might necessary though.

The Shortcode

[table-info id=N field=<field-name> /]Code language: JSON / JSON with Comments (json)

can be used to display table meta data in a post, page, or text widget.

The Shortcode has three parameters:

id (string) (required)

The ID of the table that has the Custom Data Field

field (string) (required)

The name of a meta field (see below)

format

only possible value: raw. Only applies to the default field last_modified and will return the raw datetime format instead of the pretty string.

Possible values for field are:

name

The name of the table with ID id

description

The description of the table with ID id

last_modified

The time of the last modification of the table with ID id, if the format parameter is set to raw, a datetime string will be returned, otherwise a pretty string. The format human can be used to show a text like “5 hours ago”, the format values date and time show just the date or time of the last modification, respectively.

last_editor

The author who last modified the table with ID id

Example of three Shortcodes in action (i.e. in a post or on a page near a table):

The table [table-info id=2 field=name /] was last modified at [table-info id=2 field=last_modified format=raw /] by [table-info id=2 field=last_editor /].Code language: HTML, XML (xml)

will produce something similar to

The table Demo Table was last modified at 2022-12-20 15:20:21 by TobiasBg.Code language: HTML, XML (xml)

There’s a also a Template Tag Function for this Shortcode available:

<?php tablepress_table_info( 'id=1&field=name' ); ?>Code language: PHP (php)

It works exactly like the Template Tag Function, with the parameters from this section.

To show a table in places not covered by blocks or Shortcodes (e.g. in your page footer or in the sidebar) you can use the Template Tag Function tablepress_print_table( $query );. It can be added to any part of your theme (between PHP brackets: <?php and ?>).

The parameter $query can be a string in the form of a query string in a URL or other WordPress functions like wp_list_pages(), or it can be a an array with the query parameters and values.

If you don’t want to immediately print the table, but just get the output, use tablepress_get_table( $query );, which works the same way.

The possible parameters are the same as for the Shortcode.

Example with $query as a string:

<?php tablepress_print_table( 'id=1&use_datatables=true&print_name=false' ); ?>Code language: PHP (php)

Example with $query as an array (recommended and easier to read):

<?php tablepress_print_table( array( 'id' => '1', 'use_datatables' => true, 'print_name' => false ) ); ?>Code language: HTML, XML (xml)

There’s a also a Template Tag Function for the Shortcode

[table-info id=N field="<field-name>" /]Code language: JSON / JSON with Comments (json)

available:

<?php tablepress_print_table_info( "id=1&field=name" ); ?>Code language: PHP (php)

or

<?php tablepress_print_table_info( array( 'id' => '1', 'field' => 'name' ) ); ?>Code language: PHP (php)

It works exactly as the Template Tag Function described above, with the parameters from the section about the [table-info /] Shortcode.

Each table has individual options that only concern that table. They can be changed on the table’s “Edit” screen. All of them may be overwritten by the corresponding configuration parameter of the “TablePress table” block in the block editor.

The following options are available:

Alternating row colors

If enabled, every odd row will get the additional CSS class odd, every even row will get the class even. (Those classes have a different background color applied to them by the default CSS. There’s an example on how to change these colors in the FAQ.)

Row Highlighting

If enabled, the background color of all cells of the row that is currently hovered with the mouse cursor is changed to highlight the row. (There’s an example on how to change the color in the FAQ.)

Table Head Row

If this is activated, all cells in the first displayed row will be encapsuled by the <th> instead of the <td> HTML tag and the row will be put inside a <thead> HTML tag. This is mandatory for using any of the JS libraries functions!

Table Foot Row

If this is activated, all cells in the last displayed row will be encapsuled by the <th> instead of the <td> HTML tag and the row will be put inside a <tfoot> HTML tag.

Table Name

If enabled, the Name of the Table will be printed above/below the table inside a <h2> HTML tag, which has the CSS class tablepress-table-name. The position can be selected from “above” or “below”.

Table Description

If activated, the Description of the Table will be printed above/below the table inside a <span> HTML tag, which has the CSS class tablepress-table-description. The position can be selected from “above” or “below”.

The plugin has the following general “Plugin Options”. They affect the global plugin behavior in different areas.

Custom CSS

If you want to change the style of tables, you can enter those additional commands into the “Custom CSS” textarea. There are examples on how to change certain style aspects on the FAQ page.

Admin menu entry

Use this setting to move the menu entry “TablePress” (by default in the middle of the menu) to another place in the admin menu of the Dashboard of your site.

Every table gets certain CSS classes and an HTML ID that can be used for styling. Add your styling commands to the “Custom CSS” textarea on the “Plugin Options” screen.

There are examples for common styling tasks on the FAQ page.

CSS classes are attached as <element class="class-name">...</element> to an <element>, IDs are attached as <element id="html-id">...</element>.

CSS classes

.class {
	/* your CSS */ 
}Code language: CSS (css)

tablepress (class of <table>)

Every table has this class.

tablepress-id-<ID> (class of <table>)

Every table has this class (with its ID for <ID>).

row-<number> (class of <tr>)

Every row gets this. <number> is the number of the row displayed, no matter if it is a heading row or data row. Counting always starts at 1.

column-<number> (class of every <th> or <td>)

<number> is the number of the column the cell belongs to. It will be a class of every <th> and <td> element.
Use this for styling column widths!
Example:

.tablepress .column-2 { 
	width: 200px; 
}

There’s another example in the FAQ. Important: If you use both the .column-X and the .row-X selectors at the same time, the .row-X has to stand before the .column-X (because it is given to the <tr> which encloses the <td>).

odd and even (classes of every <tr>)

If the Table Option “Alternating row colors” (or the Shortcode parameter) is enabled, every row will get one of these classes, depending on whether it is an odd or even row. Use the classes to actually style the alternating background colors. There’s an example to do this in the FAQ

tablepress-table-name (classes of <h2>)

If the Table Option “Print Table Name” is enabled, the Name of the Table will be printed above or below the table inside a <h2> HTML tag, which has this class.

tablepress-table-description (classes of <span>)

If the Table Option “Print Table Description” is enabled, the Description of the Table will be printed above or below the table inside a <span> HTML tag, which has this class.

CSS/HTML IDs

#html-id {
	/* your CSS */ 
}Code language: CSS (css)

tablepress-<ID>-no-<number> (ID of <table>)

Every table gets an ID like this. <ID> stands for the ID used in the “All Tables” list of TablePress. <number> is the count/occurrence of that table on the page up to this point. (For example, if you display the same table (with the same <ID>) twice on your site (e.g. once in a post and the second time in the sidebar), the first one will have no -no-... and the second one will have <number> = 2. This means, that these HTML IDs are not very reliable to be used for styling, as they might change depending on the occurrence of the same table on the page again. These IDs are used to invoke the JavaScript library’s calls (if activated for this occurrence of the table).

TablePress can add features like sorting, pagination (with length change feature), scrolling, and filtering/searching to a table. To enable those, check the corresponding checkboxes on the table’s “Edit” screen.

Even more features for your site’s visitors are available in the Premium features that come with a TablePress Premium plan.

You may decide for each table individually whether you want to use the “Table Features for Site Visitors” for it (see the Table Options page for more), and you can select the desired features individually.

You can add custom commands or configuration parameters into the “Custom Commands” text field. These need to follow the DataTables Documentation. You can also use certain Plugin Hooks in a custom plugin to add your own commands.

TablePress has a large number of WordPress Plugin Hooks (Actions and Filters) in its source code. These provide easy and well established methods to add new features and enhancements to the plugin, or to alter plugin behavior. A more detailed explanation can be found in the WordPress Developer Handbook.

There are some examples on how to use these hooks on the Extensions page.

The advantage of using these hooks in contrast to modifying the plugin’s source files is that the changes will still work after upgrading the plugin, and that they can be maintained separately.

TablePress understands a variety of common spreadsheet formats and can use them for importing and exporting tables. In addition, TablePress supports multiple import sources and can either add new tables from imported files or replace or append to existing tables.

Import Formats

The major import formats that TablePress automatically recognizes are described below. In addition, less common formats like ODS (OpenDocument Spreadsheet), Gnumeric, and SYLK are supported. Files from Apple Numbers are not supported at this time, so that it is recommended to save such a file to one of the supported formats before trying to import them.

CSV (Character-separated Values)

Every row is in a new line, every column is separated by a character (like “;” (semicolon), “,” (comma), or “\tab” (tabulator)). The plugin will try to determine the used separation character automatically. See the Wikipedia article for more information on the CSV format.

XLS/XLSX (Microsoft Excel)

TablePress also supports Microsoft Excel data formats for import (but not export!) of table data. Note that this support is not complete, and not all data features, like data types, are supported or available. Also, TablePress can only import the first worksheet of the Excel file. If you have problems importing tables from XLS or XLSX files, it’s recommend to save these tables in Excel as CSV files and try importing those.

HTML (Hypertext Markup Language)

The plugin will import the first occurrence of an HTML table (enclosed in <table></table>) from an HTML file. It is not possible to import multiple tables from the same file or URL, but only the first one.

JSON (JavaScript Object Notation)

TablePress can import tables from JSON that represents a plain two-dimensional array of strings, where each string represents the content of a cell. It can also import its custom and more advanced JSON format, as created during the export. See the Wikipedia article for more information on the JSON format.

Export Formats

From the Import Formats that are described above, these are available as the target format for an exported table:

• CSV (Character-separated Values)
• HTML (Hypertext Markup Language)
• JSON (JavaScript Object Notation)

If multiple tables are exported at the same time, these will be stored in a ZIP archive.

Import Sources

TablePress can import files from four different sources, which can be selected on its “Import” screen:

• File Upload, by selecting or dragging and dropping files from your local computer
• URL (link address) of a file on a website
• Server (path of a file stored on the site’s server)
• Manual Input

The File Upload, URL, and Server import sources also support working with ZIP archives that contain multiple supported files. In addition, the File Upload import source allows to directly upload multiple files, even in different supported formats.

It is also possible to import tables form common online services like Google Sheets, Google Drive, Microsoft Excel Online, Microsoft OneDrive, and Dropbox. Beginner-friendly step-by-step tutorials are available to guide you through the process of finding the necessary URL for that.

These manual imports are one-time imports. Using the Automatic Periodic Table Import feature module of the TablePress Max premium license plan, it’s possible to fully automate the import of a table file. This saves time and allows updating tables without having to log into your WordPress site!

The source code of TablePress Free is available in the ZIP file that can be downloaded from the plugin’s page in the WordPress Plugin Repository. It is Open Source and licensed as Free Software under GNU General Public License 2 (GNU GPL 2).

Development takes place in a git repository on GitHub.