Build a Professional WordPress Document Library with Posts Table Pro
When it comes to running WordPress sites that store extensive amounts of information, it can be difficult to maintain and organize documents in a way that is beneficial to your publications and your audience. A WordPress document library is an ideal way to manage your information. It lets you present documents in an accessible, easy-to-find format that can be easily managed from the front-end.
You can use a document library to share resources within your company or create a publications database or knowledge hub. It’s possible to keep your document library public or private, giving you total control over its use and privacy.
Surprisingly, decent WordPress document Library plugins that offer front-end access are few and far between. Many of the plugins that do exist are left with negative feedback and disappointing ratings, or don’t offer enough features.
However, one WordPress document library plugin that has shown to have it all is Posts Table Pro by Barn2 Media. It lets you create customizable tables from pages, posts, or the custom type posts. You don’t have to enter manual data into each box of the table to create your document library.
Read on to learn more about this plugin and how it could benefit your WordPress site.
What Exactly Does Posts Table Pro Do?
Simply put, the Posts Table Pro plugin immediately creates interactive WordPress tables that will display all your uploaded documents on one page. It can be used to list PDFs, documents, publications or any other type of document in a searchable table. The filters makes it easy for users to find whatever documents they’re looking for. Each document can then be viewed online or downloaded as a file.
The plugin supports all custom post types, which means that you can add your documents as any type of content to your website. This includes posts, pages, or a custom post type such as documents.
You can add custom fields and taxonomies to your tables and there is support for Advanced Custom Fields and the WPML plugin. This will come in handy if you want to store extra data about each document, or create a multilingual WordPress document library.
Posts Table Pro does not store the documents for you – WordPress does this instead. Essentially, Posts Table Pro creates a library of documents that you have added to your WordPress website. You can easily create a ‘Documents’ content type using any custom post type plugin such as Pods or Custom Post Type UI. Once you’ve done that, use Posts Table Pro to list the publications in a front end WordPress document library.
There are over 40 options, which gives you a lot of flexibility in how to list documents. To find out how to use Posts Table Pro and benefit from all of its document library features, read this article.
What Type of Document Library is Posts Table Pro Suitable For?
Posts Table Pro can benefit a huge range of WordPress sites that need to list documents, publications or other resources. This is because of its scope for extensive flexibility and ability to display any type of document format.
Creative publications may want to use Posts Table Pro as a way to make a library of archive podcasts, photography or videos easily searchable and accessible to their audience. Corporate publications may way to use it as a way to store and organize extensive document libraries for their staff. They might even want to use it as a private intranet site.
If your company has a large number of documents or publications, then a user-friendly document library is essential. With Posts Table Pro, users can search for specific titles and choose how many entries to show on a page. This makes it easy to digest and search for the necessary information, with additional columns for extra data such as citation reference and date.
WordPress Document Library Plugin: Available Features
If you’re using Posts Table Pro to create a document library, make sure it has the features you need. The overall aim of the plugin is to help you display information in a user-friendly format. These are some of the main features that make it ideal for listing documents:
Featured image – This is useful for displaying an image or icon to represent each document. For example, you might want to upload a PDF icon showing the file type.
Custom post type and custom data support – You can create a custom post type to store each document, plus custom fields or taxonomies for extra document data. This is useful for storing extra information that doesn’t fit into the standard fields. For example, you can create fields for file size, reference number or download link.
Fine-grained control – You can select documents to appear in the library based on their category. There are lots of options, such as showing documents based on category, ID, tag, author, date, and any custom field value. You can also exclude specific documents by post ID or category.
Media files – Posts Table Pro supports all types of WP media, including embeds, audio and video galleries and media playlists. This means that you can include embedded audio players, video and more in the document library – not just text documents.
Responsive – The WordPress document library is 100% responsive. Columns automatically fold to fit different screen sizes, and will clearly show data on mobile devices.
Lazy load option – By enabling the AJAX option, you can list hundreds or even thousands of documents in your document library without any server overload.
Final Thoughts
Posts Table Pro is easily one of the best WordPress document library plugins available. While it’s not exclusively designed to list documents, its sheer flexibility makes it the perfect solution. This is because of its range of exclusive features and extensive adaptability.
You can use the plugin to create document libraries that can be either public or private to your team (e.g. by combining it with another plugin such as Password Protected Categories), as well as to make downloadable information easy to find. You can also use it to store archive media, such as podcasts or video interviews, in a way that your audience can easily search and find.
To find out how to create a WordPress document library from scratch using this plugin, read this handy guide from Barn2.
