Show only table rows that contain defined keywords or filter terms.

Row Filtering

For sites that need to show many “small” tables with the same structure, e.g. entries from an inventory database, it can be beneficial to keep all rows in one “big” table, to simplify maintaining and editing the data.

Feature description

While manually hiding rows, even with configuration parameters, allows showign only a subset of all table rows, this approach can be cumbersome, as the numbers of the table rows need to remain the same. If a row would move, e.g. because more are inserted in a table, this will cause a lot of extra work.

Therefore, an approach similar to a database select query can help, so that only rows with a certain keyword in a column are shown, instead of the full table. That’s the use case for which the Row Filtering feature module can be used.

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Basic example

Imagine having a long table, e.g. a contacts list, with names, birthdays, companies, etc. of many people. The Row Filtering module allows to show only a subset of those people, here e.g. those from a specific company:

Last Name	First Name	Birthday	Company	Phone	ZIP code	Country	Balance	Points	Rating
Valenzuela	Lunea	01/09/1966	Cisco	970-8655	51606	Germany	$74.07	7	3.7
Moran	August	07/04/1986	Cisco	651-1214	60737	India	$22.64	1	7.5
Buckley	Stone	09/11/1980	Cisco	422-7998	74057	United States	$30.01	2	7.9

Logic operators

The example above shows the filtering for a single filter term (a single company). Using logic operators, || (for “or”) and && (for “and”), it is possible to search for multiple filter terms. This example uses the || operator to show contacts from two different companies:

Last Name	First Name	Birthday	Company	Phone	ZIP code	Country	Balance	Points	Rating
Cain	Lawrence	05/16/1994	IBM	701-3108	98004	United States	$54.81	5	2.5
Valenzuela	Lunea	01/09/1966	Cisco	970-8655	51606	Germany	$74.07	7	3.7
Logan	Shay	09/13/1968	IBM	687-6482	03023	United States	$46.39	8	7.6
Moran	August	07/04/1986	Cisco	651-1214	60737	India	$22.64	1	7.5
Buckley	Stone	09/11/1980	Cisco	422-7998	74057	United States	$30.01	2	7.9

Similarly, this example shows a table that uses the && operator to show contacts from a certain country and company:

Last Name	First Name	Birthday	Company	Phone	ZIP code	Country	Balance	Points	Rating
Valenzuela	Lunea	01/09/1966	Cisco	970-8655	51606	Germany	$74.07	7	3.7

Important note: For technical reasons, mixing the logic operators in the same table is not possible!

Additional settings

The filtering of rows can be further controlled using additional settings:

It is possible to specify which columns should be searched for the filter terms. By default, all columns are searched.
It is possible to select case-sensitive filtering. By default, case sensitivity does not matter, so that both upper- and lower-case matches would be found.
it is possible to turn on “Full cell matching”. The default behavior of the Row Filtering is to search for the filter terms anywhere in the cells. This could mean that e.g. the word car is found in a cell with the text shopping cart. Therefore, for some applications, it might make sense to only search the full cell content for matches.
In addition, it is possible to invert the “show matching rows” behavior into a “hide matching rows” behavior. This will result in the table only showing those rows that do not fulfill the filtering condition.

Usage instructions

To use these features with your tables, activate the “Row Filtering” feature module on the “Modules” screen of TablePress Pro or TablePress Max. Then, configure the desired options in the “Row Filtering” section of the “Settings” sidebar of the table’s “TablePress table” block when editing the post or page with the table, or use the configuration parameters from below.

The available settings for the Row Filtering module in the "Settings" sidebar of the "TablePress table" block. — The available settings for the Row Filtering module in the “Settings” sidebar of the “TablePress table” block.

Configuration parameters

To configure this module’s features, you can also use these configuration parameters in the “TablePress Table” block, the Elementor widget, or in the Shortcode that you are using to embed the table:

Module	Slug	Configuration parameter	Name	Description	Type	Default value
Row Filtering	row-filtering	filter	Row Filtering Term	The table will show only rows that contain this filter term. You can combine multiple filter terms with an AND or OR operator, e.g. “term1&&term2” or “term1\|\|term2”.	string	`""` (empty string)
Row Filtering	row-filtering	filter_case_sensitive	Row Filtering Case-sensitive matching	Whether the case sensitivity of the filter term has to match the content in the cell.	boolean (`true` or `false`)	`false`
Row Filtering	row-filtering	filter_columns	Row Filtering Filter columns	The columns which should be searched for the filter terms.	string	`""` (empty string) // “” equates to ‘all’.
Row Filtering	row-filtering	filter_expression	Row Filtering Expression	A logic expression for complex Row Filtering.	string	`""` (empty string)
Row Filtering	row-filtering	filter_full_cell_match	Row Filtering Full cell matching	Whether the full cell content has to match the filter term.	boolean (`true` or `false`)	`false`
Row Filtering	row-filtering	filter_inverse	Row Filtering Invert filtering result	Whether rows with the filter term will be hidden and rows without the filter term will be shown.	boolean (`true` or `false`)	`false`
Row Filtering	row-filtering	filter_url_parameter	Row Filtering URL parameter	Instead of, or in addition to, using a pre-defined filter term, a URL parameter like “table_filter” can be used.	string	`""` (empty string)