Posts Table Pro – Full list of options
The Posts Table Pro plugin comes with over 50 options for customizing your tables. This article describes all the options available for your tables, and how to use them.
Where to manage your table options
You can configure the most popular options directly in the table generator, whereas the more advanced options are managed on the plugin settings page and/or as shortcode options:
- Add Table - These options are available when you use the table generator to create a new table (Post Tables → Add New).
- Edit Table - These options are available when you edit a table (Post Tables → Edit).
- Settings Page - You can set defaults for these options on the settings page (Post Tables → Settings). These will be used for all your new tables, and you can override the defaults for each individual table.
- Shortcode - Available as shortcode options so that you can configure them directly in the
[posts_table]or[posts_table_template id=""]shortcode (instructions below).
The list of options below indicates where you can manage each one.
Full list of options
Table columns
| Option | Description | Add Table | Edit Table | Settings Page | Shortcode |
| Columns | Sets the columns in the table. You can also customize or remove the column headers | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Choosing which posts appear in the table
| Option | Description | Add Table | Edit Table | Settings Page | Shortcode |
| Category | Lists posts from a specific category | ✓ | ✓ | ⛌ | ✓ |
| Tag | Lists posts with a specific tag | ✓ | ✓ | ⛌ | ✓ |
| Term | Lists posts with a specific custom taxonomy term | ✓ | ✓ | ⛌ | ✓ |
| Custom field | Lists posts with a specific custom field value | ✓ | ✓ | ⛌ | ✓ |
| Post type | Lists posts with a specific post type (e.g. products, events, or projects) | ✓ | ✓ | ⛌ | ✓ |
| Status | Lists posts with a specific status (e.g. publish) | ✓ | ✓ | ⛌ | ✓ |
| Year | Lists posts published in a specific year | ⛌ | ⛌ | ⛌ | ✓ |
| Month | Lists posts published in a specific month | ⛌ | ⛌ | ⛌ | ✓ |
| Day | Lists posts published on a specific day of the month | ⛌ | ⛌ | ⛌ | ✓ |
| Author | Lists posts by a specific author/user | ✓ | ✓ | ⛌ | ✓ |
| Include | Lists specific posts in the table based on ID | ✓ | ✓ | ⛌ | ✓ |
| Exclude | Excludes specific posts from the table based on ID | ⛌ | ⛌ | ⛌ | ✓ |
| Exclude category | Excludes entire categories of posts from the table | ⛌ | ⛌ | ⛌ | ✓ |
| Exclude term | Excludes posts with specific taxonomy terms from the table | ⛌ | ⛌ | ⛌ | ✓ |
| MIME type | Lists media library files with a specific file extension | ✓ | ✓ | ⛌ | ⛌ |
Table content
| Option | Description | Add Table | Edit Table | Settings Page | Shortcode |
| Rows per page | Sets the number of posts on each page of the table | ⛌ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Post limit | Sets the maximum number of posts that can appear in the table | ⛌ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Links | Sets which columns in the table are clickable | ⛌ | ⛌ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Button text | Changes the text of the button column, for example if you want this to appear as 'Read More' rather than 'View' | ⛌ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Shortcodes | Displays content generated by other shortcodes in the table (e.g. buttons or embedded audio or video players) | ⛌ | ⛌ | ✓ | ✓ |
Sorting & ordering
| Option | Description | Add Table | Edit Table | Settings Page | Shortcode |
| Sort by | Controls how the posts are sorted when the table first loads | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Sort order | Sorts the table in ascending or descending order | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Filters | Add filter dropdown lists above the table | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Search term | Filter by search term when the table first loads | ⛌ | ⛌ | ⛌ | ✓ |
| Search on click | Controls whether clicking on a category, tag or custom taxonomy will filter the table or link to the relevant archive page | ⛌ | ⛌ | ⛌ | ✓ |
Control elements above & below the table
| Option | Description | Add Table | Edit Table | Settings Page | Shortcode |
| Search box | Shows, hides or positions the keyword search box | ⛌ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Reset button | Shows, hides or positions the reset link | ⛌ | ⛌ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Page length | Shows, hides or positions the “Show <x> posts” dropdown list | ⛌ | ⛌ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Totals | Shows, hides or positions the post totals (e.g. “Showing 1 to 10 of 50 posts”) | ⛌ | ⛌ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Pagination | Shows, hides or positions the pagination buttons (previous, next etc) | ⛌ | ⛌ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Paging type | Sets the pagination style | ⛌ | ⛌ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Show footer | Shows or hides the footer row of the table | ⛌ | ⛌ | ⛌ | ✓ |
| Scroll offset | Changes the height that the page scrolls to when you move between pages in the table | ⛌ | ⛌ | ⛌ | ✓ |
Sizing & styling
| Option | Description | Add Table | Edit Table | Settings Page | Shortcode |
| Widths | Forces each column to a certain width | ⛌ | ⛌ | ⛌ | ✓ |
| Content length | Sets the number of characters in the 'content' column | ⛌ | ⛌ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Excerpt length | Sets the number of characters in the 'excerpt' column | ⛌ | ⛌ | ✓ | ✓ |
Images
| Option | Description | Add Table | Edit Table | Settings Page | Shortcode |
| Image size | Sets the size of featured images in the table | ⛌ | ⛌ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Lightbox | Control whether your images open in a lightbox | ⛌ | ⛌ | ✓ | ✓ |
Mobile visibility & responsive options
Your tables will automatically adjust to suit mobiles and different screen sizes. There are shortcode options to give you more fine-grained control over this.
| Option | Description | Add Table | Edit Table | Settings Page | Shortcode |
| Wrap | Controls whether or not content is wrapped onto multiple lines | ⛌ | ⛌ | ⛌ | ✓ |
| Priorities | Controls which columns are hidden on screen sizes when there are too many to fit on the page | ⛌ | ⛌ | ⛌ | ✓ |
| Column breakpoints | Provides fine-grained control over the breakpoints for each column when viewed on smaller screen sizes | ⛌ | ⛌ | ⛌ | ✓ |
| Responsive control | Controls the + icon which shows hidden rows | ⛌ | ⛌ | ⛌ | ✓ |
| Responsive display | Sets whether hidden rows are visible or hidden, or open in a modal window | ⛌ | ⛌ | ⛌ | ✓ |
Peformance
| Option | Description | Add Table | Edit Table | Settings Page | Shortcode |
| Lazy load | Improves performance by loading the overall page before the table, and loading 1 page of posts at a time | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Cache | Whether to use caching to speed up table load time | ⛌ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Miscellaneous options
| Option | Description | Add Table | Edit Table | Settings Page | Shortcode |
| Date format | Sets the date format for any date columns | ⛌ | ⛌ | ⛌ | ✓ |
| Date columns | Specifies which columns contain dates, so that the column can be sorted by date correctly | ⛌ | ⛌ | ⛌ | ✓ |
| No posts message | Controls the text that appears if no posts are found when the table first loads | ⛌ | ⛌ | ⛌ | ✓ |
| No posts filtered message | Controls the text that appears if no results are found when a user searches or filters the table | ⛌ | ⛌ | ⛌ | ✓ |
| Numeric terms | Fixes any issues if you're using numeric slugs for your categories or taxonomies | ⛌ | ⛌ | ⛌ | ✓ |
How to use shortcode options
Posts Table Pro comes with two shortcodes:
[posts_table]- generates a new table directly in the shortcode. You do not have to create a table first.[posts_table_template id=""]- embeds tables which you have previously created using the table generator in Post Tables → Add New. When using this, you must add the table ID between the quotation marks. You can find this on the main list of tables (Post Tables → Tables).
Both shortcodes support advanced options which you can configure directly in the shortcode. The shortcode options are listed in the instructions for each option which are linked to in the table above.
To get you started, here are some popular examples of different ways to use the Posts Table Pro shortcodes.
Basic usage displaying all posts (see below for full list of columns):
[posts_table columns="image,title,content,date,author"] or [posts_table_template id="1" columns="image,title,content,date,author"]
Display posts from a single category (use the category slug or ID):
[posts_table columns="title,excerpt,tags" category="news"] or [posts_table_template id="1" columns="title,excerpt,tags" category="news"]
Display posts from several categories. This example shows posts in the “ebooks” category or the “audiobooks” category:
[posts_table category="ebooks,audiobooks"] or
[posts_table_template id="1" category="ebooks,audiobooks"]
Display posts that belong to several categories. This example shows posts that are in the “featured”, “course”, and “health” categories:
[posts_table category="featured+course+health"] or [posts_table_template id="1" category="featured+course+health"]
Exclude posts from a category. This example excludes posts in the “clients” category:
[posts_table exclude_category="clients"] or [posts_table_template id="1" exclude_category="clients"]
Display featured image. Defaults to 50 by 50 pixels, but you can specify a custom image size if you wish:
[posts_table columns="image,title,content" image_size="80x80"] or [posts_table_template id="1" columns="image,title,content" image_size="80x80"]
Choosing custom column headings:
[posts_table columns="title:Post Name,content:Description,Author:Written By"] or [posts_table_template id="1" columns="title:Post Name,content:Description,Author:Written By"]
What else can I do?
Please also see our articles on advanced usage, which include advice on adding tables to category archive or search results pages, translating the posts table into other languages, developer documentation, and more. We've also published a list of compatible third party plugins that you can use with Posts Table Pro.