So you have a lot of data that you want to present to your readers. Using tables seems like the obvious choice, right? The problem is that tables are not supported by the classic WordPress visual editor. The solution ? Plugins of course!
In this article, I will cover the following points:
- Why tables are a problem with WordPress.
- Which makes a WordPress table plugin great.
- A review of the best WordPress table plugins.
- Which plugin you should choose to add tables to WordPress - our recommended choice.
Why Don't All WordPress Users Like Tables
One of the good things about creating content in WordPress is that almost anything you can do in word processing software (e.g. styling text, adding special characters, embedding images) can be done. directly from the WordPress editor.
The only type of feature that hasn't been translated to WordPress yet, however, is table design.
While a table isn't necessarily a common feature used in web design, it's a basic enough element that would be great to have included in the editor's settings by default.
On second thought, it seems a little odd that WordPress didn't have built-in tabletop support until the release of theGutenberg editor and its default Table block.
Maybe it was part of that initial effort to keep the app as simple as possible, or maybe the thought was that if a post needed a table it was pretty easy to switch to text mode and add HTML by hand .
Adding a table manually is, of course, always an option, but it is tedious, laborious, and error-prone.
There are much better options available for WordPress users.
They are called plugins 🙂
Not surprisingly, a number of plugins are available to help users add tables to WordPress.
Plugin and theme developers have recognized the need to improve the design of HTML tables in WordPress, especially when businesses are looking for better ways to convey complex information to users and display professional-looking tables and charts on their site.
So now we have a multitude of lightweight plugins and site creation tools equipped with table creation features.
But, what WordPress table plugin should you use for your site?
Well, of course, it depends on your needs.
For example:
- Do you plan to use tables extensively in your content or only occasionally?
- Do you present simple or complex information in your tables?
- Are you going to add the content to tables yourself or import table data from other sources?
- How often will you need to update the table information?
- Will your tables contain only a few columns and rows of data or several hundred or even thousands of entries?
What Makes a WordPress Table Plugin Great?
To help you choose the best plugin for creating and adding tables to your posts and pages, I have compiled a list of currently supported WordPress table plugins and have looked at the following criteria for each of the listed plugins:
- Visually appealing
- User-friendly
- Sensitive
- Gutenberg ready
- additional Features
Who wants to watch boring tables?
Tables can be used for a variety of reasons in WordPress.
- They display data to support the research or topic discussed on the page.
- They list product specifications that can be too long, cumbersome, or difficult to understand when written in plain text or even bulleted.
- They break down the service offerings side by side, highlighting the main features as well as the prices of each.
- They compare products and similar items side by side to help visitors in the decision-making process.
- They allow visitors to make their own calculations (which can be a really smart sales tactic).
There is no doubt that the use of tables is an effective way to present complex information.
But if your tables are boring, you will only make things more difficult for visitors to your site.
Whatever you decide to do with tables in WordPress, your goal should be to do it in the most attractive way possible.
Data and long specs lists aren't always the most exciting things to read (which is why images play such a big part in web design these days), so your tables need more than just the right thing. boring Excel processing.
You don't have to create revolutionary art with your tables, but for heaven's sake let's give everyone's eyeballs something fun to look at and make their time on your site a positive user experience. .
So the first criterion that we will look at when comparing WordPress table plugins is does the plugin generate beautiful tables?
Can tables provide information et be visually appealing to users as well?
What options does it offer for designing and customizing tables in WordPress?
I will test this criterion by creating and styling an array using the plugin's default settings.
You shouldn't be a programmer to add data to tables and tables in WordPress
If you have to learn to write code to add data to tables and insert tables into WordPress content, you might as well go back to the manual method.
Businesses of all kinds need to add tables to their content and the last thing they need is someone to tell them they need to learn HTML and PHP to post data in table format to their sites.
And they are absolutely right too!
WordPress table plugins should be user friendly enough to allow end users to easily download and populate table data from a spreadsheet (e.g. Excel or Google Sheet).
Or manually add and edit data in table columns and rows from a visual interface. And insert their tables wherever they want in their content using shortcodes or widgets.
I will test the usability of the plugin by importing a demonstration CSV file with several columns and more than 8 rows of data.
Users can't view your boards on their mobile device… What's wrong with this image?
Do you still need links to articles on mobile usage statistics to be convinced that everyone and their grandmother (and all of grandma's neighbors) are spending more time accessing information online using mobile devices instead of large clunky desktop screens?
We shouldn't even write reviews of plugins and WordPress themes which include phrases like "... and a great feature of this plugin / theme is that it is mobile-responsive and works on all browsers ..." .
If users cannot view tables on their mobile devices by scrolling, dragging or clicking or pressing to expand the data, you should not use this plugin to display tables in WordPress (because this plugin won't be around much longer!)
So what we're looking for in our list of the best WordPress table plugins is the responsiveness of the plugin on users' mobile devices.
If it's not ready for Gutenberg, it's not good !!!
Gutenberg is the future of WordPress. There is no more debate to do about it.
Whether you or your clients plan to add tables to content in WordPress using plugins, visual builders, or even themes (e.g. pricing tables), there must be built-in support for it. Gutenberg.WordPress editor Gutenberg now supports tables, so all WordPress table plugins must do that too!
Here are the best WordPress table plugins to choose from
With the above criteria in mind, let's take a look at the best WordPress plugins which can help you create tables for your posts and pages.
Visualizer: Table and graph manager for WordPress
Visualizer is a free plugin for WordPress that allows you to create and manage interactive (and responsive) tables for your posts and pages. It can also help you create animated graphics, diagrams, etc.
What do the tables look like?
Here is the table I created using Visualizer by importing the CSV demo file and configuring some basic styling options in plugin settings: Visualizer demo table
Is it user friendly?
This plugin allows you to create and add an unlimited number of tables and charts to your content. Tables and charts can be easily added to content through the classic WordPress editor or to Gutenberg through its own custom block. It also lets you manually edit data in your charts and tables - as well as import data from a URL, CSV file, or Google Spreadsheet. If that's not enough, you can also customize the design and behavior of your tables and charts.
Is it reactive?
You can choose to make individual tables responsive or not by enabling or disabling responsive function in chart settings, this is what mobile users will see when viewing a table created using Visualizer ( WordPress theme customizer display-based mockup) .The plugin integrates different animation and responsive technologies, such as Google visualization API, DataTables.net and ChartJS. It also supports cross-browser compatibility and cross-platform portability to iOS and Android.
Is it compatible with Gutenberg?
You can add interactive tables and charts to WordPress posts and pages using the Visualizer Gutenberg block, once you've done that, you can configure various options in the custom block settings. These include table, cell, row, and column settings, and you have the option to add front-end actions to users, such as allowing them to print, export, or copy data from your table.Visualizer block Gutenberg.
Additional plugin information
The free version includes 8 types of built-in charts (table chart, line chart, area chart, bar chart, column chart, pie chart, geo-chart and scatter chart). The pro version gives you 6 additional chart types and options, as well as allows you to import data from other charts using a live editor.
It also allows you to do things like: automatically synchronize tables and charts with online files, create private charts, allow users to edit charts, etc.
Overall, this is a great plugin to install if you plan to use tables and charts extensively on your site and want complete control over the design and presentation of your data.
Test Notes
I initially ran into problems importing table data from a CSV file, until I realized the table needs to be formatted with the first row containing the column headers and the second line containing the serial type (string, number, boolean, date, datetime, time of day). Once I reformatted the CSV file correctly, the upload was fine. Interested in Visualizer: Tables and Charts Manager for WordPress?
TablePress
TablePress is a free WordPress plugin that allows you to easily create and manage tables on your website containing any type of data. From numbers, text and images to links and even math formulas.
What do the tables look like?
Here is the table I created using TablePress by importing the demo CSV file, there are only a few options available to configure the style of your tables without using custom CSS: Demo table created using help for the TablePress plugin.
The table above shows some of the functionality of the DataTables JavaScript library in the activated plugin settings (for example, sorting, filtering, paging and searching). The size of the columns appears to be determined by the cell data, which makes the titles of the narrow data columns unattractive.
However, the plugin provides a "Custom Orders" field where additional parameters from the DataTables documentation can be added to the JS call. This means that advanced users can further edit and customize the table.
Is it user friendly?
TablePress is very simple and easy to use. The plugin adds its own admin interface section to the main menu, where you can create and edit tables and then enter the table data into a visual table builder (rather than a post), allowing you to put update all instances of the table on your site.
Additional table editing functions include: copy / duplicate and delete tables, and sort table data by drag and drop.Once you are done creating your table, use a simple shortcode (or template function) to add a table to WordPress posts, pages or text widgets. This shortcode allows you to use the same table on multiple pages.The plugin integrates with the Data Tables jQuery plugin, so you can enable features like live sorting, pagination, search, scrolling horizontal, etc.
You can also easily add and remove new columns and rows and include connected / combined cells in your table structure.Finally, there is the option to export and import tables individually or in bulk to share between sites Tables can be imported from Excel (.xls and .xlsx), CSV, HTML or JSON files and exported / saved / saved in most of these formats.
As also mentioned, TablePress gives you some basic design options in the settings area, such as activating the first and last rows to be the table head and footer row, alternating back colors outline the rows, highlighting rows (when you hover the mouse over the mouse), and displaying the table name and description above or below the table. These are pretty much all of the options that you have, unless you choose to style your tables using CSS.
Is it reactive?
Tables created using TablePress are only "responsive" in the technical sense that they will be resized as you resize your browser. They are not "mobile" responsive because everything the table does is trying to squash everything together, creating a table that looks like this: This is what mobile users can expect to see when viewing tables created using TablePress (mockup based on the WordPress theme customizer display).
Is it compatible with Gutenberg?
TablePress does not have its own custom Gutenberg block. If you are creating posts or pages using the Gutenberg editor, you will need to copy and paste the plugin generated shortcode into a Shortcode block. Paste your TablePress shortcode into a shortcode block to display the tables at the help from Gutenberg.
Additional plugin information
With over 800+ active installs, TablePress is one of the most popular table plugins available for WordPress.If you plan to add multiple instances of the same table to different posts, pages, or areas of your site, or if you only need to add basic tables to your content using a simple CSV style implementation - then TablePress is worth the download and read. Donate to the developer of the plugin and hopefully this plugin will continue to work. 'improve.
Test Notes
I have found the easiest way to update table data in TablePress is to create and export your table (e.g. as a CSV file) then edit the file directly and when done, just re-upload and overwrite your existing table using import function.However, while testing this plugin I made the mistake of importing my demo file first CSV (with 8 rows of data) Then I had to painfully scroll down the page and wait for thousands of rows to load on my screen before I could access the settings section of the table, which is under the generator This process would have been much easier and faster if I had followed my own advice and created a new table first, configured the settings, and then imported the large CSV file - overwriting the newly created blank table. TablePress?
Ninja Tables
Ninja tables allows you to create, manage and customize data tables in WordPress with a range of styling options built in. You can also import large tables and even tables created using some of the other plugins discussed in this article.
What do the tables look like?
While this plugin has a lot of customization features, the free version only gives you limited design options. Demo table created using Ninja Tables.
If you want to take advantage of all the plugin's customization features, consider upgrading to their Pro version.NinjaTables allows you to create and add stunning tables to your content in WordPress.
Is it user friendly?
I have only tested the free version of this plugin. The plugin interface looks pretty easy and user-friendly, but you can only get to the good stuff by upgrading to the Pro version, however, I was able to create a table manually and import data from my demo CSV file with no issues. .
Is it reactive?
Tables created using NinjaTables resize with your browser and are mobile responsive.How users can expect to view tables created using NinjaTables. (Mockup made using the WordPress theme customizer display.)
A cool feature of this plugin is the ability to set different responsive breakpoints to specify how your table columns should look when viewed on different devices.
For example, you might want data from multiple columns to be initially hidden behind a plus ('+') symbol when viewed on a mobile device.NinjaTables allows you to select which columns to initially hide when viewed on different devices.
Is it compatible with Gutenberg?
Ninja Tables adds a custom Gutenberg block that allows you to select your table from a drop-down menu and provides an "Advanced" field for adding CSS. Ninja Gutenberg Block Tables
Additional plugin information
Even though I only tested the free version of this plugin, Ninja Tables seems easy to use and gives you fine control over your column settings and data insertion. You can bulk edit / edit, delete and duplicate rows of data and sort data in your table by drag & drop.
As mentioned, with the Pro version you get a lot more. We're talking about features like global defaults for your tables and other handy options like allowing users to filter, search and sort tables.
The plugin also gives you access to advanced customization features like CSS styling, setting maximum column width, conditional column formatting - as well as the ability to display Google Spreadsheets as tables in WordPress and WooCommerce integration.
Test Notes
One disappointing aspect of this plugin is that you have to upgrade to the Pro version to access the features that other plugins offer in their free versions. Such as the ability to add media to table cells, use colors, align text, merge cells, specify pagination breakpoints, etc. On a positive note, it looks like to a very good plugin and judging by the reviews users seem very happy with the functionality of the plugin. Interested in Ninja Tables?
Hope this information helps you choose the best WordPress table plugin for your sites (or those of our clients). Find the right plugin that gives you the most joy and you will soon be dancing on the tables too!
