So importing a .xls or .csv file doesn’t change anything. Both file types don’t yield search results.
One thing I did notice is that when the search results work when I actually copy and paste HTML table into the wordpress WYSIWYG instead of the short code. Normally I just need to put the TablePress shortcode into the WYSIWYG:
[table id=1 /]
Once again, the table shows up on the page but not the search results unless I manually copy and paste generated code:
<tr>
<td>Example search term</td>
<td>Example search term</td>
</tr>
etc
Why is that?