Web Garden Consulting, LLC

Plugin Spotlight: TablePress

Introducing TablePress – the last table you’ll ever need!

Tired of HTML Tables?

So Are We!

tablepress

TablePress is a great little plugin that allows users to create sortable tables using a graphical user interface that allows html markup! For all you HTML beginners out there, this can be a HUGE time-/life-saver! Have a glossary of information you want to share with your blog readers? Want to list quantitative research results? Want to put together a sortable “database-esque” feature on your site? This is the plugin for you!

It’s incredibly easy to install & configure and uploading data is as simple as 1, 2, 3! Simply install the plugin, then go to the TablePress interface from the left menu on your WordPress Dashboard, hover over TablePress and click on ‘add new’ or ‘import’ to get started!

You can create your tables in excel (or other spreadsheet program – see LibreOffice) and save it as a .CSV, then upload using the import function in TablePress, or you can create your table using the TablePress interface itself – which though not quite as easy as excel for data entry, is still quite user friendly.

Here’s an example of a table I made:

Note: You can click on column headers to sort the table!

[table id=tablepress]

You can see the table uses jQuery to sort the content (click on the column headers to resort) which means you can reorder the table without reloading the entire page. Additionally, you can specify either the first, the last or BOTH the first & last rows to be your table “headers” & “footers”. For large amounts of data (many rows) you can also create pages in your tables so that your pages don’t extend down into infinity…

As always, feel free to contact Dave with any questions about the installation, configuration or general use of this plugin!