Title: Inverted Filtering
Author: Tobias Bäthge
Published: November 9, 2024
Last modified: November 8, 2025

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Turn the filtering into a search and hide the table if no search term is entered.

# Inverted Filtering

By default, the “Search” feature in TablePress tables is actually a “filtering” 
feature: Initially, all tables are shown, and when typing something into the “Search”
field, rows that do not have that search term in them will be filtered out and hidden.

## Feature description

The “Inverted Filtering” feature module can, as the name says, invert this behavior
and offers an actual “Search”: Initially, no table rows will be shown, and after
typing a value into the “Search” field, only rows that have that search term will
be shown. In addition, control elements like the Pagination Controls and related
will be hidden until there are visible table rows.

**Here is an example:**

Type something into the search field, e.g. the search term “Julia” to see how the
search results only appear after entering that search term.

  |  Name | Year | Country | Sport | Time | Rate | Fee |  
   |  Eric | 1986 | Sweden | Soccer | 05:25 | 40.4% | $7.14 |

[Use this feature with TablePress Max today](https://tablepress.org/pricing/?output_format=md)

## Usage instructions

To use these features with your tables, activate the “Inverted Filtering” feature
module on the “Modules” screen of TablePress Max. Then, configure the desired options
in the “Inverted Filtering” section on the table’s “Edit” screen.

![Screenshot of the "Inverted Filtering" configuration section in TablePress Max.](
https://tablepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/datatables-inverted-filter.png)

The “Inverted Filtering” configuration section in TablePress Max.

Please note that features like [Alphabet Search](https://tablepress.org/modules/datatables-alphabetsearch/),
[Column Filter Dropdowns](https://tablepress.org/modules/datatables-columnfilterwidgets/),
[Custom Search Builder](https://tablepress.org/modules/datatables-searchbuilder/),
[Fuzzy Search](https://tablepress.org/modules/datatables-fuzzysearch/), [Individual Column Filtering](https://tablepress.org/modules/datatables-column-filter/),
and [Search Panes](https://tablepress.org/modules/datatables-searchpanes/) are not
compatible with Inverted Filtering.

## Configuration parameters

To configure this module’s features, you can also use these [configuration parameters](https://tablepress.org/faq/configuration-parameter-reference/)
in the “TablePress Table” [block](https://tablepress.org/faq/documentation-tablepress-table-block/),
the Elementor widget, or in the [Shortcode](https://tablepress.org/faq/documentation-shortcode-table/)
that you are using to embed the table:

  |  Module | Slug |  | Configuration parameter | Name | Description | Type | Default value |  
   |  Inverted Filtering | datatables-inverted-filter |  | datatables_inverted_filter | Inverted Filtering | Whether to turn the filtering into a search and hide the table if no search term is entered. | boolean (`true` or `false`) | `false` |

The “Inverted Filtering” feature module is part of the [**TablePress Max plan**](https://tablepress.org/pricing/?output_format=md).

**On this page**

 1. [Feature description](https://tablepress.org/modules/datatables-inverted-filter/#feature-description)
 2. [Usage instructions](https://tablepress.org/modules/datatables-inverted-filter/#instructions)
 3. [Configuration parameters](https://tablepress.org/modules/datatables-inverted-filter/#configuration)