Website question

Anyone use themes with Wordpress to design their site? I am trying to add a table. I have read all of the help pages I can, have loaded the shortcode exactly the way they show, I get the same 'table' showing on my editor, just like in the help pages, and as soon as I look at it live it is just a big jumble with all the headers squished together with no actual 'table' (you know with lines delineating the different sections of the table).
I could live without the lines if the data all lined up properly side by side with spacing and then in the columns as well.
If you do use a theme and you have a working table inserted could you just cut and paste the code here so I can look at it?
I've tried 3 different ways and I know it's because I'm missing something somewhere I'm not cognizant of having to look.
Yes, having a wonderful time learning all this new stuff that is going to make my life so much easier once it is all done! A month from now! If I'm lucky!
You know, it's like selling your house. You just don't realize what kind of clutter you've got until you start to sort thru it all!
Oh, and another one...trying to do one single page with a 2-column layout (it's a list of things to do that I don't want to have to scroll for three days to see all of it). Ideas on how to do that other than inserting the shortcode which doesn't seem to do anything? Mostly because I don't know what to put into the coding box that pops up.
I read another help page on that and it was completely beyond me. I didn't even know where to insert the code they provided. All in a day's work. It will be obvious to me someday. Just not TOday. ;-)

This is when you need a PLUG IN that does the trick. I am sure there are plenty out there for free.

Joey Bloggs said:

This is when you need a PLUG IN that does the trick. I am sure there are plenty out there for free..

Click to expand...

Yeah that was one of the options. And that's the one that I had no idea where to plug it in! Or how to upload it. STEEP learning curve here!

Do you have Jetpack installed? I think it's the plugin that added a magic wand icon to my menu bar (or whatever you call it, where there are buttons for bold, bullet list, indent, etc.). The magic wand brings up a list of shortcodes it can insert, and one of them is a fairly decent table tool. I've found that once you build the table, though, to edit it you need to switch from the Visual tab to the Text tab (in the upper right corner of the editor) then go in and manually edit the table, like copy and paste a row in to add a row to the table, or cut and paste to move a row to a different position in the table. A slight pain, but it works.
Edit to add: To add a plugin, look for Plugins on the list of tabs to the left in "Dashboard view" mode. Click the Plugins tab, then click "Add new" and search for the plugin you want to add. I recommend Jetpack to start. After it installs the plugin, you usually have to click to activate the new plugin, and often you need to go configure some settings in the plugin. Sometimes plugins add their own tab on the left of the Dashboard view. Other plugins are edited by clicking the Plugins tab, then selecting "Installed Plugins" to view the ones you have.
Yes, steep learning curve but once you've done it a few days it becomes a bit easier and more clear.

Madeleine said:

Joey Bloggs said:

This is when you need a PLUG IN that does the trick. I am sure there are plenty out there for free..

Click to expand...

Yeah that was one of the options. And that's the one that I had no idea where to plug it in! Or how to upload it. STEEP learning curve here!
.

Click to expand...

Click on the Plugins tab, choose add new and then you can do a search from there for a plugin to do what you need to do.
We actually are using something called Pricing Tables to do our prices, not a standard table.

Madeleine said:

Joey Bloggs said:

This is when you need a PLUG IN that does the trick. I am sure there are plenty out there for free..

Click to expand...

Yeah that was one of the options. And that's the one that I had no idea where to plug it in! Or how to upload it. STEEP learning curve here!
.

Click to expand...

I might be a little naive here, but I thought Plug Ins were created with coding that causes it to automatically start working with the intended program. You just click ok, ok, ok and let it download how & where it wants and it should all just kick in.
Am I completely off base, those of you who know better??

K9 said:

Madeleine said:

Joey Bloggs said:

This is when you need a PLUG IN that does the trick. I am sure there are plenty out there for free..

Click to expand...

Yeah that was one of the options. And that's the one that I had no idea where to plug it in! Or how to upload it. STEEP learning curve here!
.

Click to expand...

I might be a little naive here, but I thought Plug Ins were created with coding that causes it to automatically start working with the intended program. You just click ok, ok, ok and let it download how & where it wants and it should all just kick in.
Am I completely off base, those of you who know better??
.

Click to expand...

K9 said:

I might be a little naive here, but I thought Plug Ins were created with coding that causes it to automatically start working with the intended program. You just click ok, ok, ok and let it download how & where it wants and it should all just kick in.
Am I completely off base, those of you who know better??

Click to expand...

Most of the ones I have must be activated and configured after you install them.
Besides Jetpack, other plugins I'm using:
Backup Scheduler (handles automatic backup of your site in case you need to restore after some major disaster)
W3 Total Cache (improves the speed of your website)
WP-Optimize (optimizes databases to make things run faster)
WP Smush.it (reduces image file sizes so they load faster, without huring resolution)
Askimet (I pay about $5/month for this service for my site's blog and contact form (if you use the one created by Jetpack), helps protect you from comment spam)

Arkansawyer said:

Do you have Jetpack installed? I think it's the plugin that added a magic wand icon to my menu bar (or whatever you call it, where there are buttons for bold, bullet list, indent, etc.). The magic wand brings up a list of shortcodes it can insert, and one of them is a fairly decent table tool. I've found that once you build the table, though, to edit it you need to switch from the Visual tab to the Text tab (in the upper right corner of the editor) then go in and manually edit the table, like copy and paste a row in to add a row to the table, or cut and paste to move a row to a different position in the table. A slight pain, but it works.
Edit to add: To add a plugin, look for Plugins on the list of tabs to the left in "Dashboard view" mode. Click the Plugins tab, then click "Add new" and search for the plugin you want to add. I recommend Jetpack to start. After it installs the plugin, you usually have to click to activate the new plugin, and often you need to go configure some settings in the plugin. Sometimes plugins add their own tab on the left of the Dashboard view. Other plugins are edited by clicking the Plugins tab, then selecting "Installed Plugins" to view the ones you have.
Yes, steep learning curve but once you've done it a few days it becomes a bit easier and more clear..

Click to expand...

I don't think I have that one but I do have all the shortcodes already on the toolbar. I *should* just be able to click on the shortcode I want and insert it into the page. Or, conversely, which is what I did, just find the code I need and cut and paste.
Like I said, it looks exactly right in the editor and crap live.
But, I will search the plugins list and see what comes up. I think I found something that may be like what you have already installed...it's called tinymce. (Which I keep reading as 'tiny mice'.)

Thanks all!
I found a plug in that seems fairly simple to use. And I installed it. And updated 2 plug ins that had new versions. I'm feeling better about this.
Off to try creating some tables...

wait till i get home tomorrow, i will show / tell you how. your theme has everything you need without needing a plug in. hold tight,

Joey Bloggs said:

This is when you need a PLUG IN that does the trick. I am sure there are plenty out there for free..

Click to expand...

CUSTOMER SUPPORT WILL BE BACK ON LINE MONDAY.
donnt do anything till i get to you

EmptyNest said:

Joey Bloggs said:

This is when you need a PLUG IN that does the trick. I am sure there are plenty out there for free..

Click to expand...

CUSTOMER SUPPORT WILL BE BACK ON LINE MONDAY.
donnt do anything till i get to you

.

Click to expand...

It's too late. I did it. It looks fine. But, will gladly work with customer support to do it differently! You might be amazed what I've gotten up to in the past few days!

Madeleine said:

EmptyNest said:

Joey Bloggs said:

This is when you need a PLUG IN that does the trick. I am sure there are plenty out there for free..

Click to expand...

CUSTOMER SUPPORT WILL BE BACK ON LINE MONDAY.
donnt do anything till i get to you

.

Click to expand...

It's too late. I did it. It looks fine. But, will gladly work with customer support to do it differently! You might be amazed what I've gotten up to in the past few days!
.

Click to expand...

i have seen good for you