techtangerine

As Wordpress users may be aware, the Write Post dashboard in Wordpress does not give the option for creating tables.

The alternative is to paste tables as pure HTML. This will only work as desired when pure HTML is inserted. Pasting the HTML of a table created in Google Docs appears to work flawlessly. On the other hand, creating a table in Microsoft Word, saving it in HTML, and then pasting the HTML will get you the table, but there may be all sorts of inconsistencies. Such as the table spilling over the entire blog page and the loss of format elements.

Another alternative is to use a Wordpress plugin that can import tables created in Microsoft Excel.

An expert-only alternative is to manually modify the Wordpress Write Post dashboard to include table features! It is possible.

But so far, I have found that the easiest way to create tables in a Wordpress blog post is to take advantage of the advanced format options available in Windows Live Writer.

This table was created in Windows Live Writer.	Isn’t it cool?
1.	No more messing with HTML
2.	WYSWIG editing
3.	No more tweaking plugins

Of course, The simple Table Editor packaged with Windows Live Writer is no match for the one that comes with Microsoft Word. For example, you cannot edit the colors of the table borders or the cell backgrounds. You cannot merge cells. But you can adjust the height of rows, columns and cells. You can adjust the alignment of values in the tables. You can add/remove rows and columns on a pre-existing table. You can insert pictures into the table as well. This is definitely a more convenient workaround until Wordpress gives us a table feature. The picture on the left is a screenshot of the dropdown menu under “Table” in Windows Live Writer version 14.0.8064.206.en.

Tags: Tables in Wordpress, Windows Live Writer Table feature