The Buttons extension for DataTables provides a common set of options, API methods and styling to display buttons on a page that will interact with a DataTable. Modules are also provided for data export, printing and column visibility control.

To use Buttons the primary way to obtain the software is to use the DataTables downloader. You can also include the individual files from the DataTables CDN. See the documentation for full details.

If you prefer to use a package manager such as NPM or Bower, distribution repositories are available with software built from this repository under the name datatables.net-buttons. Styling packages for Bootstrap, Foundation and other styling libraries are also available by adding a suffix to the package name.

Please see the DataTables NPM and Bower installation pages for further information. The DataTables installation manual also has details on how to use package managers with DataTables.

Buttons is initialised using the buttons option in the DataTables constructor, giving an array of the buttons that should be shown. Further options can be specified using this option as an object - see the documentation for details. For example:

$(document).ready( function () {
    $('#example').DataTable( {
    	buttons: [ 'csv', 'excel', 'pdf', 'print' ]
    } );
} );

• Documentation
• DataTables support forums

If you fancy getting involved with the development of Buttons and help make it better, please refer to its GitHub repo