A WordPress password protect custom post type plugin is a powerful tool to create and manage specific types of content on your WordPress site, while keeping them secure and private with password protection.

It's important to get new content up more quickly, and organize it effectively. However, you won’t always want all that custom content to be visible to everyone.

There are 2 ways to protect a custom post type WordPress. First, you can protect your custom post types with a password, so no one but approved visitors can see that content. Second, you can restrict content within specific post types to logged in users with particular roles. Both of these techniques can be applied to any post type – including the default ones that come with WordPress, post content types that you create yourself, and content types added by plugins or themes.

In this step-by-step beginners' guide, we’ll discuss what custom post types are and when you might want to keep them private. Then we’ll show you how to protect custom post type WordPress with the easy-to-use Password Protected Categories plugin. Let’s jump right in!

Not created your custom post types yet? Check out our tutorial on how to create custom post types using Pods.

An introduction to custom post types in WordPress

First, it’s important to understand that the term ‘post type’ is a bit of a misnomer. A better term might be ‘content type’ since it refers to the various kinds of content you can create for your WordPress site. The two most common and frequently-used post types are Posts and Pages, although there are a few other default options.

While you can do a lot with the post types WordPress supplies, sometimes you’ll want additional flexibility. For example, let’s say you use your website to run an e-commerce store. In this case, you could benefit from having a Products post type. This would be set up with all the features and information you need to create individual product pages for the entire site.

In fact, this is one of the things that popular e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce do for you:

The WooCommerce Products custom post type.

There are actually a lot of membership plugins that add new custom post type WordPress to your site. You can even create your own post types, both manually and using a plugin. Either way, this is a great method for expanding what you can do with WordPress and streamlining the process of creating new content.

Why you might need to password protect custom post types

WordPress password protected portfolio

Sometimes, you want any visitor to be able to view everything on your website. However, that’s not always the case. In some cases, you may need to restrict access to certain content on your WordPress site and only display it to approved or logged-in users. This can be achieved by setting permissions for specific users or user roles.

Here are just a few examples of scenarios when you might want to do this:

  • E-commerce websites If you’re running a wholesale store or something similar, you may want to restrict some or all of your products from public view.
  • Online portfolios You may not want just anyone to view your work – instead, you can keep it locked away from those you don’t trust.
  • Image galleries For photographers selling their work online, it can be useful to set up private galleries and hide them from everyone except specific clients.
  • Event-based sites Websites that feature events often want to restrict information, and display it only to people who have been invited to the event or who have paid for access.

In these situations, you can hide anything that needs to be kept private by password-protecting the relevant custom post types. If you have a custom Products, Portfolios, Galleries, or Events post type, for example, you can ensure that only those with a password you choose can view that content. Fortunately, doing this is easier than you might expect, as long as you have a WordPress custom post type plugin.

How to password-protect any custom post type in WordPress (2 methods)

If you do need to password-protect one or more post types in WordPress, all you need are the right tools and a little instruction. Below, we’ll present two ways to get the job done, using a WordPress custom post type plugin. Keep in mind that these techniques will work for all post types – including the default options.

1. Password-protect custom posts for all visitors

First up, let’s talk about how to hide specific content within a custom post type from anyone who visits your site – except those with the right password. To do this, you’ll need the Password Protected Categories plugin:

This WordPress custom post type plugin makes it easy to WordPress security on any type of content with passwords and to customize what is made private and what is kept public.

Install the plugin and configure its settings

To get started, install Password Protected Categories on your website. Then navigate to Settings > Protected Categories:

The Password Protected Categories plugin settings.

Here you can paste in your license key, in order to access the plugin’s full functionality. You can also customize how long passwords will be active, and what the WordPress login page form for password-protected content will look like:

The Password Protected Categories login form options.

Save your changes here.

Password-protect specific custom post type categories

Next, go to the Categories screen for the relevant custom post type (for example, Events > Categories):

The WordPress Categories screen.

If you select a specific category here and scroll down to the bottom of the password protected page, you’ll find a new post Visibility option section:

The Visibility section for the Password Protected Categories plugin.

Here, you can choose whether to make the category public or protect it with a password. In the latter case, simply enter whatever password you’d like and save your changes. You can also click on the plus icon to add multiple passwords to one category.

In practice, this means that if you add all content in a custom post type to a particular category, you can password protect the entire group. By adding all your events to an Events category, in other words, you can keep them private from everyone except approved visitors.

How to restrict only some of a custom post type's content

It’s also worth noting that you can protect only some of the content under a specific custom post type. For instance, let’s say you advertise both public and private events on your site. You want everyone to see the public events, but you want to restrict the private events to attendees only.

To do that, you can put all your events into one category, and then create two sub-categories: Private Events and Public Events. Then, simply password-protect the former, and leave the latter set to Public:

Private and public Events categories.

That's all you need to do!

Password-protecting the WooCommerce 'Products' post type

Finally, if you’re running a WooCommerce store, you’ll want to opt for the WooCommerce Password Protected Categories plugin instead:

This WordPress custom post type plugin has very similar functionality and can be used via the same process described above. However, it integrates fully with WooCommerce and supports its custom Products post type.


2. Restrict access only to specific user roles

The above process will work well in most cases. However, sometimes you’ll want to password-protect custom post types only for certain kinds of users. For instance, you might want to restrict access to an 'events' post type for random visitors but display them freely to subscribers.

You can achieve this using a simple 2-step process:

  1. First, mark the custom post type categories that you want to hide as 'Private'.
  2. Next, control which user roles can see private custom post type categories and their posts.

I'll tell you how to do this next.

a. Create private custom post type categories

In this case, you'll still need to start by installing and setting up the Password Protected Categories plugin (or WooCommerce Password Protected Categories if you're protecting WooCommerce products).

Instead of password protecting the custom post type categories that you want to hide, you need to mark them as User Role protected. To do this, go to the Categories page for whatever custom post type you want to edit. Choose the parent category that includes all of your custom post type content, select 'Protected' and select the user roles who should see the custom post type.

User and role protected categories

Save your changes. This will hide them from everyone except for logged in users whose role allows them to access the WordPress password protect custom post type category.

b. Create new user roles (optional)

If you are happy with the user roles that come with WordPress itself, then you can skip this section. Alternatively, keep reading to learn how to create custom WordPress user roles who can see the private custom post type categories and posts.

You need one additional tool for this – the free User Role Editor plugin:

The User Role Editor plugin.

With this plugin, you get a lot more control over the way user roles work on your WordPress site. You can create new roles, customize the existing ones, and much more. Plus, it’s completely free to use.

After installing the plugin, go to Users → User Role Editor in your WordPress dashboard:

The User Role Editor settings.

Find a role that has the general capabilities that you require for your new role. This will generally be Subscriber. You can then clone the role to create a new one, such as 'Staff'.

Finally, go back to the 'Edit Category' page for your custom post type category, and restrict it to your custom user role.

How to create custom post types in WordPress

You can use a plugin to create custom post types without the need for coding like CSS and PHP. At Barn2, we recommend using our free Easy Post Types and Fields plugin to create WordPress register custom post types with ease.

To get started, simply install and activate the Easy Post Types plugin:

  1. Go to Plugins → Add New in the WordPress admin.
  2. Search for 'Easy Post Types and Fields'.
  3. Install the plugin of this name by Barn2.
  4. Once activated, navigate to the Easy Post Types menu in your WordPress dashboard and click the "Add New" button.

From here, you'll be taken to a WordPress page where you can configure your custom post type settings. You can set the post type name, slug, labels, and even choose which post type features to enable, such as comments and revisions.

One of the standout features of Easy Post Types is its intuitive drag-and-drop interface. This allows you to easily create custom fields and taxonomies for your post type, without the need for any coding skills.

Once you've configured your WordPress register custom post type settings, click the "Create Post Type" button to save your changes. Your new custom post type will now be available in the WordPress admin menu, where you can begin adding and managing your content.

Create custom archive pages for custom post types with Posts Table Pro

If you're using WordPress to manage your website content, you may have encountered the need to create WordPress archive page for custom post types. These are essentially a way to organize your content in a more meaningful way, beyond just the standard blog posts and pages. Once you've created a custom post type, you'll likely want to create an archive page for it, which will display all of the posts within that type.

Fortunately, WordPress makes it easy to create WordPress archive page for custom post type. If you're not comfortable with coding or don't have the time to create a custom template, there is a solution. You can use the Posts Table Pro plugin to create an archive listing any custom post type.

This plugin is incredibly versatile and allows you to create WordPress archive page for custom post type tables. It dynamically generates lists of posts that can be filtered, sorted, and searched.

WordPress archive plugin

To get started with Posts Table Pro, simply install and activate the plugin. A setup wizard will launch automatically. This wizard will provide you with a step-by-step guide to help you create your first table. You'll be able to specify which custom post type you want to display, as well as choose which columns of information to include in the table.

After creating a table using the Post Table Pro plugin for WordPress, there are two ways to insert it into your website. The first method is to use the Post Table block in the Gutenberg block editor. The second method is to copy the shortcode from the table builder or the Post Tables section in the WordPress admin and paste it wherever you want the table to appear on your site.

Install a WordPress password protect custom post type plugin today!

If you use custom post types on your WordPress website, you’ll want to think carefully about who can access their content. There are many situations when you’ll want to restrict certain people from viewing particular post types. Fortunately, this is easy to do if you have a WordPress password protect custom post type plugin.

In this article, we’ve introduced two ways to password-protect any custom post type in WordPress:

  1. Password-protect content for visitors without an account.
  2. Restrict access to specific logged in users, or entire user roles.

You can do both of these with the easy-to-use Password Protected Categories plugin. Just install it, protect your custom post type categories, and you're done!

Do you have any questions about how to use this WordPress password protect custom post type plugin? Ask away in the comments section below!

Image credit: freeGraphicToday.

Sample documents for sale using the WooCommerce Product Table plugin

When you think of starting an online store that sells digital goods, selling documents probably isn’t the first thing that comes to mind. What most people don’t realize, however, is that digital documents are still one of the best-selling digital products.

In this in-depth guide, we’ll show you how to get started with selling documents online using the most popular WordPress e-commerce plugins. We’ll look at everything you’ll need to get started and walk you through step by step instructions on how to set up an online store that sells documents in WordPress.

You’ll learn how to create a fully functional e-commerce website to sell documents online using either WooCommerce or Easy Digital Downloads, with the documents listed in an easy-to-find table layout ideal for maximizing sales. We'll talk about how to sell digital documents, and how to sell printed documents that you will post to customers.

But before we begin, let’s take a look at why you should sell documents online.

Why should you sell documents online?

It’s no surprise that documents are some of the most popular digital products. They’re easy and cheap to create and the take up very little storage space on your virtual shelves.

Creating a digital document to sell online requires nothing but a computer, your time, and some mental energy. If you have some ideas in mind and little bit of time to invest then there’s no limit to what you can create and sell. Not to mention there are tons of online tools that can help you out in the design department.

And because documents are digital products, storing them on your website’s server takes up very little space. Unlike physical goods, you don’t have to worry about carrying and maintaining large inventories when you sell digital documents online. Documents are sustainable and incredibly easy to distribute (we’ll take a look at this in a minute).

Why documents are valuable

For starters, you’ve put together something that can be downloaded.

Downloadable products, like documents, give users the option to store them directly on their devices and access them offline whenever they’d like. In the case of templates, users can print them out as many times as they’d like without having to worry about losing quality or converting them to different formats.

This saves users valuable time in having to do it themselves which makes downloadable documents excellent products to sell online.

Protecting documents from being copied

One major concern that most online retailers have with selling any form of digital products (especially documents) is piracy. Specifically, how do you protect digital copies of your products from being re-produced? A clear solution is to apply Digital Rights Management (DRM) controls to the documents you sell. DRM controls work to prevent various forms of copying. To name a few:

  • Locking-in documents to registered devices.
  • Disabling Save As, Select All, CTRL + C, CTRL + V, right-click + Copy, right-click + Paste, and print screen commands.
  • Stopping screen capturing tools from taking screenshots.
  • Applying automatic, custom watermarks to the document.

If done right, selling documents online in WordPress can be an incredibly lucrative business venture. At this point you may be wondering what types of documents you can create. And more importantly, what types of documents sell online.

What types of documents can you sell online?

Let me answer your question with another question: what types of documents do you want to be creating?

When it comes to creating marketable documents, there’s something in store (pun intended) for just about everyone. If you’re a creative, you could sell design templates or sheet music. And if you’re in the legal business, there are tons of legal templates people search for from tenancy agreements to living will and bill of sale to non-disclosure agreements. In B2B circles, white papers, case studies, and industry reports are always in demand.

More often than not, documents that are sold online are either informational pieces or templates. They might be listed in an Easy Digital Downloads or WooCommerce document library so that users can quickly find a suitable documents and buy online. Here’s a list of just some of the different types of documents that you can sell online:

Informational pieces

  • Industry reports
  • How-to guides
  • Manuals
  • White papers
  • Swipe files

Templates

  • Proposals
  • Resumes and CVs
  • Legal letters
  • Stationery
  • Letterheads
  • Business cards
  • Bill of sales
  • Balance sheets

Others

  • Sheet music
  • Manuscripts

There’s so much you can do when it comes to selling documents online that, in some cases, you won’t even have to create content from scratch.

For instance, you can repurpose existing blog posts into manuscripts or how-to guides and save readers time from digging them out on your own. There’s a lot of value in curating and packaging high-quality content in just about every niche.


Selling documents online using WordPress e-commerce plugins

E-commerce plugins give you the option to sell your documents in a choice of file formats, languages, or color schemes, depending upon the document type.

For instance, if you were selling calendar templates that you had custom designed in Adobe Photoshop, you might want to offer them in a variety of colors. Or if you were to sell a project proposal document that you created in Adobe InDesign, it might be a good idea to offer it in both .indd and .idml file types.

In the next section, we’ll show you how you can use two of the most popular WordPress e-commerce plugins – WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads – to sell documents online. Both plugins are excellent e-commerce solutions for selling digital products and both offer outstanding customer support. You'll also learn how to list documents in an easy-to-find document library format which will help you to sell more documents.

WooCommerce

WooCommerce

WooCommerce is the best (and most popular) e-commerce solution for WordPress websites. In fact, over 44% of all online stores – selling both physical and digital goods – are powered by WooCommerce.

One key benefit of selling documents online in a WooCommerce document library is that it lets you sell variable products. What this means is that you have the option to sell both print versions and downloadable versions of your documents.

Easy Digital Downloads

Easy Digital Downloads

Easy Digital Downloads is another popular e-commerce plugin for WordPress that specializes in selling virtual and digital goods. Most people use the plugin to sell downloadable products like software, e-books, audio files, and documents.

Choosing an e-commerce plugin for selling documents online

Since WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads are both great options for selling documents online, deciding which one to go with can be pretty difficult.

If you’re going to be selling digital documents only then you can go with either WooCommerce or Easy Digital Downloads.

Here a few scenarios where it makes sense to go with a WooCommerce document library over Easy Digital Downloads:

  • If there’s a chance that you’ll be selling print versions of your documents then go with WooCommerce. This is because you’ll likely be charging for postage. Easy Digital Downloads doesn’t offer delivery and shipping options.
  • It’s easier to list documents in a table if you’re using WooCommerce. We’ll walk you through a tutorial on how to do this with both WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads in the following sections. There’s an extra step involved if you’re using Easy Digital Downloads which happens automatically if you’re using WooCommerce.
  • WooCommerce also has a better choice of extensions to improve the way you sell documents. For example, if you want to add product quick view then you're better off with WooCommerce.

So, if you’re looking to keep things simple or perhaps want to be selling print versions of your documents then you should use WooCommerce. However, if any of these scenarios don’t apply to you then you should read a bit more about each plugin and see which one is best for your specific business needs.


How to use WooCommerce to sell documents online

Here, we’ll walk you through a step by step tutorial on how to sell documents online using WooCommerce in WordPress.

We’ll start off by setting up WooCommerce, add documents to the library, list the documents on our website, and start selling. We’ll also share some helpful tips on how you can sell more by using some tried and tested strategies for selling digital products.

Step 1: Set up WooCommerce

  1. Log into your WordPress website’s admin panel, navigate to Plugins > Add New, and search for WooCommerce.
Install Now button to install the WooCommerce plugin
  1. Install the WooCommerce plugin and activate it to your website.
  2. Once the plugin is activated, you’ll be prompted to run the Store Setup Wizard. Run the wizard and configure your online store’s payment and shipping options. It’ll ask you: What type of product do you plan to sell?
    1. Select the I plan to sell both physical and digital products option if you want to be delivering and shipping your documents in addition to offering downloadable versions.
    2. However, if you simply want to offer downloadable documents, select the I plan to sell digital products
Type of product field in the WooCommerce setup wizard
  1. On the payment gateways screen, enter your PayPal email address. If you want to offer credit and debit card payments then we recommend going with Stripe. It’s a good idea to offer both a PayPal option and a credit/debit card option so that it’s easy for customers to make payments.
Stripe and PayPal payment options
  1. Click the Create a Product button to continue.
Button to begin creating your first product in WooCommerce

Step 2: Add documents to WooCommerce

You’ll be redirected to the Add new product screen to add the document you want to sell through your online store.

  1. Add a product name, description, categories, and tags for your document. If it makes sense for your document, upload a product image for it using the Product image
Product data for a sample, simple product created in WooCommerce
  1. Scroll down to the Product data section:
    • Make sure Simple product option is selected.
    • Tick the Virtual box and the Downloadable
    • Add a price for your document.
  2. Click the Publish button to proceed.

Navigate to Products > Add New and repeat these steps to add all of the documents you want to sell through your online store.

Step 3: List WooCommerce documents on your WordPress website

Now that you have your documents added to your WooCommerce store, you need to display them on your site’s front-end so that potential customers can view their details and buy them.

Although WooCommerce comes with the free Storefront theme in addition to some built-in options for displaying your products on the front-end, these layouts aren’t suitable for selling documents. If you’d like to go for a more professional look, it’s a better idea to list your documents in a table-style layout.

You can do this in a few simple steps using the WooCommerce Product Table plugin. Since you’ve already added your documents to your WooCommerce store, the WooCommerce Product Table plugin will automatically create a responsive table and list your documents in it.

The key benefit of listing your documents in a table-style layout is that it is information-centric and puts the focus on your documents’ specifications instead of on product images.  In addition to this, it makes it easy for potential customers to search for the document they’re looking for using built-in filters and a keyword search box. Customers can view document pricing information, select options, and add documents to their cart directly from the document table.

How to list documents in a WooCommerce table layout

  1. Install and activate the WooCommerce Product Table plugin to your WordPress website.
  2. Navigate to WooCommerceSettingsProductsProduct tables from the admin panel and enter your license key.
  3. Configure the product table’s options based on your personal preferences and click Save changes to continue.
  4. Head over to Pages > Add New and create a new page where you want to list the documents.
  5. Click the Insert product table button in the toolbar to add the following shortcode to your page: [product_table].

All of your documents should automatically be added to the page. It should look something like this:

Preview of the WooCommerce Product Table on the front-end listing documents

Bonus tip #2: Add product quick view for quicker shopping

If you want to provide more information or multiple images, then customers can click through to the single product page. However, that's not ideal because it takes the customer away from your list of documents. There's a risk that they could get lost. As a result, they might only buy one product from you. And of course, you want them to buy multiple documents!

WooCommerce Product Table Quick View Magnifying Glass
Instead, you can use quick view to show extra information and images in a popup window. Customers click on the quick view links or buttons to open a lightbox. This keeps them on the main list of documents, and there's no chance they will get lost.

Customers can close the quick view or add the document to the cart directly from the quick view lightbox.

Bonus tip #2: Use product variations to sell multiple options for your documents

Up until now, we’ve shown you how to create a simple product with a fixed price. WooCommerce also supports variable products which means you can setup variation options for each product. Here’s how:

Follow the instructions outlined in Step 2 to create your product. When you get to the Product data section:

  1. Make sure Variable product option is selected.
  2. Create attributes for the product from the Attributes For instance, we could set an Instrument attribute for our sheet music document.
Sample product data for a variable document product in WooCommerce
  1. Set variations for the products from the Variations Following our example, we might set three instruments – piano, flute, and clarinet.
    • Add a price.
    • Add a product name.
    • Select the downloadable file.
  2. Click Save changes to proceed.

It might look something like this on the front-end:

Preview of document product variations on the front-end using WooCommerce Product Table plugin

Perfecting your WooCommerce document library

And that's not all! The WooCommerce Product Table plugin comes with a number of handy features to make your documents table visually appealing and improve your customer's user experience.

For instance, the filter options make it easy for potential customers to find documents. You can also choose the columns you'd like to display on the front-end. And it's also got options for replacing the Add to cart button with checkboxes so that people can easily buy multiple documents from you and add them all to their shopping cart together.


How to use Easy Digital Downloads to sell documents online

In this section, we’ll walk you through a step by step tutorial on how to sell documents online using Easy Digital Downloads in WordPress.

Step 1: Set up Easy Digital Downloads

  1. Log into your WordPress website’s admin panel, navigate to Plugins > Add New, and search for Easy Digital Downloads.
Install Now button to install the Easy Digital Downloads plugin
  1. Install the Easy Digital Downloads plugin and activate it to your website.
  2. Once the plugin is activated, head over to Downloads > Settings and configure the plugins’ settings based on your personal preferences.

Step 2: Add documents to Easy Digital Downloads

  1. Navigate to Downloads > Add New from the WordPress admin panel.
  2. Add a download name, description, categories, and tags for your document. If it makes sense for your document, upload a product image for it using the Download image
  3. Add the document’s price in the Download Prices
  4. Upload the downloadable document from the Download Files
  5. Click the Publish

Repeat these steps to add all of the documents you want to sell through your online store.

Step 3: List Easy Digital Downloads documents on your WordPress website

Next, it’s time to display the documents on your site’s front-end. Since Easy Digital Downloads is a designed specifically for selling digital products online, you can simply choose to go with its default layout.

However, if you want to kick things up a notch and offer potential customers a better user experience then you can your documents in a filterable, searchable table-style layout using the Posts Table Pro plugin.

With Posts Table Pro, you get a dynamic table plugin that lets you list your documents neatly in a table view. The table view is fully configurable and you can use it to display important information about your documents. This way, your potential customers will be able to view the document’s name, description, price, and a button to add them to their shopping cart.

How to list documents in an Easy Digital Downloads table layout

  1. Install and activate the Posts Table Pro plugin on your WordPress website.
  2. download the zip file from the link in your order confirmation email and upload it to your WordPress admin by going to Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin, then click Activate. The Posts Table Pro setup wizard will then initiate automatically and guide you through creating your first table.
  3. Follow these instructions to list your documents in a table.

Once you’re done, your table might look something like this:

Preview of the Posts Table Pro on the front-end listing documents

Bonus tip: Use variable pricing to sell multiple options for your documents

Easy Digital Downloads comes with a Variable Pricing option that gives you the option of adding different options for a document. You can use this option to offer product add-on fields or other document variations.

For example, if you’re selling sheet music, you might want to give your customers the option to purchase an audio recording or a training video of it from you, as well.

To begin, follow the instructions outlined in Step 2 to create your product. When you get to the Download Prices section:

  1. Make sure Enable variable pricing option is selected.
  2. Add as many price options as you’d like and give each one a price.
Pricing Options set for variable pricing in Easy Digital Downloads
  1. Click Save changes to proceed.

It might look something like this on the front-end:

Preview of variable pricing options on the front-end using the Posts Table Pro plugin

Bonus tip - Make sure your EDD store meets European tax rules

Easy Digital Downloads EU VAT trimmed

If you're selling digital products (including documents) to customers in Europe, then you have to collect European VAT from them - even if you're not actually based in the EU. That's the law.

When you set it up Easy Digital Downloads, it's therefore essential to collect the correct VAT based on the customer's location. You can easily do this with the Easy Digital Downloads EU VAT plugin.

Get EDD EU VAT

Where to get the plugins

Selling documents online can be a lucrative business if you have the right tools to help you set up and manage a documents library in WordPress that customers can buy from directly.

WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads both offer features that allow you to automate your sales process. Pair them with either the WooCommerce Product Table plugin or the Posts Table Pro plugin to display them in a filterable and searchable table view complete with Add to Cart buttons.

Have you used any of the methods outlined in this tutorial to sell documents through your online store? We’d love to hear from you, so let us know by commenting below!

WooCommerce Product Table order form

If you want your WooCommerce store to succeed, you'll need to design it with the needs of your specific customers in mind. For instance, shops that regularly sell items in large quantities may require something beyond a traditional layout.

These stores can benefit from making the ordering process quicker and more efficient. Fortunately, this can easily be achieved by setting up a WooCommerce bulk order form. This feature will enable your customers to buy everything they need on one page, and add it all to their cart with a single click.

In this guide, we’ll explain how WooCommerce bulk order forms work and discuss what kinds of e-commerce stores they’re most suited to. Then we’ll walk you through how to set up and customize one. We'll use the WooCommerce Product Table plugin for selling multiple products in the same order form; or WooCommerce Bulk Variations to create bulk order forms listing the variations for a single product. Let’s get to work!

An introduction to WooCommerce bulk order forms

Most WooCommerce stores are set up so that customers must visit each product's individual page to buy it. This works well for shops where visitors are likely to purchase only one or two items per visit.

However, what if you’re running the type of shop where customers tend to buy many products or variations at once, in bulk? Forcing them to navigate to every product page will only slow them down. This leads to frustration and increases the risk that they won’t complete the bulk purchase.

That’s where a WooCommerce order form plugin comes in handy. This adds a one-page product table to your site, either listing one or many products like this:

 

Customers can see all your products and variations at once (or the ones you’ve selected to display). They'll have the important information about each item right at their fingertips. Most importantly, they can pick everything they want to buy on the form, and add their entire order to the cart simultaneously in bulk. It's the perfect way to allow bulk buying in WooCommerce.

A WooCommerce bulk order form can be a smart addition to your site. It streamlines the buying process, improving the user experience at the same time. As a side benefit, it also promotes all your products, and encourages visitors to buy more items.

Case study – Darren Bowen Photography’s WooCommerce bulk order form

Darren Bowen is a photographer who sells his photographs online at Darren Bowen Photography. On the website, customers can also buy a range of mugs and iPad smart covers all printed with Darren’s images.

Buying the mugs and iPad smart covers in bulk is easy because of the two WooCommerce bulk order forms powered by our WooCommerce Product Table plugin.

It's an easy to understand order process. The customer chooses the right quantities on the bulk order form, then uses the “add to cart” function. Once everything’s in the cart, the customer can check their order before proceeding to pay. From there, it's a fast and simple one-click single-page checkout.

Carry on reading to find out how you can add your own WooCommerce bulk order form.

How to know if your store needs a WooCommerce bulk order form

Of course, not every site needs a bulk order form. How do you decide if this feature is right for your WooCommerce store?

The short answer is that a bulk WooCommerce order form comes in handy for any shop where customers tend to make multiple purchases in the same order. The more likely your visitors are to buy in bulk, the more beneficial this type of order form can be.

Let’s look at a few examples of e-commerce sites that will find a WooCommerce bulk order form invaluable.

Wholesale stores

WooCommerce wholesale ordering pluginsIf you’re running a WooCommerce wholesale store then a bulk order form plugin is essential. Your customers are likely to know exactly what they’re looking for, and to buy dozens or hundreds of items at once. Requiring them to browse through separate product pages to choose their quantities and variations is hardly the optimal solution.

With a WooCommerce bulk order form, on the other hand, you can enable buyers to make selections quickly. This is a smart way to encourage them to keep coming back.

Further reading: Read our ultimate guide to WooCommerce wholesale plugins.

Office supply shops

Of course, some stores regularly sell items in bulk to individual customers. Office supply shops and similar sites are a perfect example. Customers will often want to purchase everything they need for their office in one convenient order. You need to make this bulk buying process easy for them.

The same applies to any store where the products offered are fairly simple and self-explanatory. Rather than listing out each type of printer paper on its own page, you can offer all the options on a one-page bulk WooCommerce order form.

Grocery and catering businesses

Bulk grocery stores are becoming more common, since few people purchase only one or two food items at once. These customers aren’t likely to need a lot of in-depth information about each product. A WooCommerce bulk order form plugin lets them check off everything on their shopping list, and move on:

A WooCommerce bulk order form for a restaurant.

The same goes for catering businesses, and some types of restaurants. Customers ordering food online will appreciate the option to select everything they want on a single page.

Further reading: How to create a WooCommerce restaurant ordering system.

Which is the best WooCommerce bulk order form plugin?

At this point, you probably know whether you’d like a WooCommerce bulk order form plugin for your online store. All that's left is to choose the best tool for the job.

You'll need one of the following plugins:

  1. WooCommerce Product Table - create bulk order forms listing multiple products. If you have variable products then the variations are either listed as dropdowns for the customer to choose from, or on separate rows of the table. Comes with search, sort and filters to help customers find what they want more quickly.
  2. WooCommerce Bulk Variations - create a bulk order form listing the variations for a specific product. This normally appears on the single product page, but you can list variations anywhere on your site.

As a reminder, here's what the two options look like:

Both bulk order form plugins let you list products or variations on your WordPress site, and customize it fully. They are 100% integrated with WooCommerce, and are excellent tools for creating a bulk order form.

How to design an effective WooCommerce bulk order form (in 4 steps)

Fortunately, both plugins are very easy to use and customize. Now, we'll take a look at how you can use each one to set up your own WooCommerce bulk order form.

  1. WooCommerce Product Table instructions
  2. WooCommerce Bulk Variations instructions

#1. WooCommerce Product Table setup guide

The following steps will walk you through the process of creating and customizing a WC bulk order form with WooCommerce Product Table. Let’s start with the basics!

Step 1: Install and activate the plugin

The first thing you’ll want to do is purchase and install the WooCommerce Product Table plugin. You can do this on an existing or new WP site. Just make sure you have WooCommerce installed, and you’ve added all the products you want to display.

After that, navigate to WooCommerce → Settings in your WordPress Dashboard. Choose the tab labeled Products, and click on the new Product tables section:

The WooCommerce Product Table settings.

Paste in the license key you received when you purchased the plugin. Then select Save changes at the bottom of the page. This is essential for ensuring that all features will work correctly.

Step 2: Customize your bulk order form settings

At this point, you can start customizing your WooCommerce bulk order form. There are a lot of options you can configure. To get you started, we’ll run through a few of the most important settings to consider when setting up a bulk order form.

Your first stop should probably be the Columns field:

The WooCommerce Product Table settings for columns.

Here, you can determine exactly what information will be displayed in your WooCommerce bulk order form. You can show images, descriptions, categories, and much more. Don’t forget to include an Add to Cart button!

The next two options are also important:

The WooCommerce Product Table settings for cart buttons.

By selecting the Quantity selectors checkbox, you enable customers to easily purchase more than one of the same item. Then, in the Add to cart button drop-down menu, choose the Checkbox or Button and checkbox option. This is crucial, since it will let customers check off all the items they want and add them to their cart with one click (using a handy button at the top of the order form).

Next, it’s a good idea to change the default setting under Product variations:

The WooCommerce Product Table settings for variations.

Customers shouldn’t have to visit individual product pages to see all of an item’s variations. Instead, you can display product options (such as colors or sizes) within your Woo bulk order form, either as a dropdown list or on separate lines.

Just below, you may want to enable the Filter dropdowns option:

The WooCommerce Product Table settings for filters.

Use the filter options to let customers filter the order form so that it only displays items meeting a certain criteria (such as products in a particular category, if your table contains a category column).

After that, scroll down a bit and look for the Lazy load option:

The WooCommerce Product Table settings for lazy loading.

If you have hundreds or thousands of products, your bulk order form can take a while to fully load. By selecting this checkbox, you’ll speed up the process so customers don’t have to wait.

Near the bottom of the page, you’ll find a setting called Show links:

The WooCommerce Product Table settings for links.

By default, certain columns in your bulk order form will display as links to the individual product pages. However, you may want to disable some or all of those links. That way, you keep customers on the bulk order form page throughout the entire buying process.

Step 3: Generate your WooCommerce bulk order form

When you’re done tweaking the product table settings, don’t forget to save your changes. Then, you’re ready to actually create your bulk order form.

Open up or create a page, and check out the icons at the top of the WordPress editor:

Adding a WooCommerce bulk order form in the WordPress editor.

The last option is called Toggle Toolbar. Select that, and a new row of icons will appear. Click on the one labeled Insert Product Table:

Adding the WooCommerce Product Table shortcode in the WordPress editor.

This will place a shortcode on the page, which will pull all the product table settings you chose and generate your order form. You can view it on the front end using the Preview button:

An example of a customized WooCommerce bulk order form.

If you want to make any additional changes to your WooCommerce bulk order form, go back to the product table settings page and alter whatever you like. Your changes will automatically be applied to your existing order form.

By default, all of your WooCommerce products will appear in the bulk order form. You can change this, however, if you want to display particular categories or specific items. This is a good idea if you want to create more than one bulk order form, each listing different WooCommerce products.

When your WooCommerce bulk order form is complete, simply Publish the page to make it live on your site! Customers will now be able to use it to make bulk purchases. Before wrapping up, however, let’s look at a few more optional features you can add.

Step 4: Add ‘extras’ to your WooCommerce bulk order form

In this final step, we want to present a few extra features you can use to enhance your WooCommerce bulk order form. While these options aren't required, they can be a valuable addition.

Add product quick view lightboxes

WooCommerce Quick View Lightbox with Product Variations

A WooCommerce bulk order form is a brilliant way to create one-page shopping. But what if you want a way to display more information without taking customers to a separate page? What happens if you have too many variations or product options to fit neatly into the order form?

WooCommerce Product Table Quick View Magnifying Glass
Add quick view buttons or links to the bulk order form.

The answer is to use WooCommerce Product Table with its sister plugin, WooCommerce Quick View Pro. This lets customers view extra product information in a popup lightbox window. It's a great option because customers are not taken to a separate page. When they close the lightbox (either by closing it manually or adding the product to their cart), they remain on the bulk order form. This encourages them to buy more and more from the order form, increasing your average order value.

The quick view plugin has lots of options so that you can control how customers can access extra information from the bulk order form:

  • Choose whether to open the quick view by clicking on the product image, name or a dedicated quick view button.
  • Rename the quick view button to anything you like, e.g. 'Configure', 'View More Images' or 'Choose Options'.
  • Show or hide the quick view icon.
  • Choose whether to display the product image gallery in the lightbox, and/or product information and purchase details.
  • Choose exactly which product data to include in the lightbox.

Upsell with extra product options

As we’ve discussed, you can easily display product variations in your bulk order form. However, what if you also want to offer add-ons to specific items? To do this, you can purchase the Product Options add-on extension for WooCommerce:

This extension is simple to use, and gives you more flexibility in what you can let customers buy using your bulk order form. Here's an example of how the add-on fields appear in the bulk order form:

WooCommerce custom product fields in table

Show the cart contents on the bulk order form

If your bulk order form page has a sidebar, it can also be a nice touch to display the customer’s cart contents and subtotal there. You can do this easily in WooCommerce by navigating to Appearance → Widgets in your dashboard, and adding the Cart widget over to your sidebar.

Now, your customers will be able to see the contents of their carts without leaving the order form page:

A bulk order form and WooCommerce cart widget.

#2. WooCommerce Bulk Variations setup guide

Next, we'll look at how to create bulk order forms for your variations with WooCommerce Bulk Variations. As we saw earlier, this plugin lists the variations for a specific product in a variations grid or matrix.

WooCommerce Bulk Variations lets customers view and purchase variations in bulk. This is the easiest way to sell more variations and increase sales. It also saves you time by letting you add and edit variations in bulk.

Customers can use quantity selectors next to each variation to quickly add multiple product variations to their cart. You can use the WooCommerce Bulk Variations plugin as either a bulk order form or a price matrix.

With WooCommerce Bulk Variations, you can display products that have either one or two attributes used for variations. The plugin automatically lists your variations in a matrix-style grid format. For example, if you sell t-shirts and have Size and Color as attributes, your bulk variations matrix might look something like this:

WooCommerce Bulk Variations grid

The bulk variations order form has a quantity box for each variation. This makes it easy for customers to quickly add products to cart and proceed to checkout. The best part is that customers won't have to select each variation individually. This speeds up the purchasing user flow.

Most people add these to the single product page, so I'll show you how to do that.

Step 1: Install WooCommerce Bulk Variations

  1. Log into the WordPress admin and install the WooCommerce Bulk Variations plugin.
  2. Go to WooCommerce → Settings → Products → Bulk variations and activate your license key from the order confirmation email.
  3. Choose the default settings for your bulk variation forms, and whether or not you want to enable them automatically.
WooCommerce Bulk Variations settings page

Step 2: Add bulk variation order forms

If you used the option on the settings page to enable the bulk variations form for each product automatically, then you can skip this step! Alternatively, you can enable it for specific products only by going to the Add/Edit product page.

Product with 1 or 2 attributes which are used for variations will have an extra 'Bulk variations' tab in the 'Product Data' section of the page:

WooCommerce Bulk Variations product page tab

You can use this to configure the variations grid for each product individually.

If you want to display the bulk variations order forms elsewhere, then you can do this using a shortcode.

Step 3: View the variations grid

Finally, view the product page and you will see the variations listed in a beautiful bulk order form like this:

WooCommerce Bulk Variations grid

Bonus tips

You can use the following tips to enhance your bulk variations forms whether you're using WooCommerce Product Table or WooCommerce Bulk Variations.

Use minimum quantities to force customers to buy in bulk

WooCommerce Quantity Manager Plugin

So far, we've looked at 2 ways to create a WooCommerce bulk order form which makes it easy for customers to buy in bulk. However, we haven't done anything which actually forces customers to purchase bulk quantities. They can still place small orders if they wish to do so.

That's why it's important to set some WooCommerce minimum quantity rules in your store. These prevent customers from placing low quantity or low value orders. As a result, you create a bulk-only store and ensure that every order is profitable.

To do this, you need to use WooCommerce Product Table or WooCommerce Bulk Variations with the WooCommerce Quantity Manager plugin. This lets you set a range of minimum quantity rules to your store:

  • Add a minimum order quantity for the entire cart.
  • Set minimum quantities for specific categories, products or even individual variations.
  • Specify minimum values that the customer must spend before they can complete their order. Again, this can be set for the entire order or per category, product or variation.

Get more sales with quantity-based bulk discounts

WordPress bulk discounts plugin
Research into buying psychology has proven that customers buy larger quantities if they believe they're getting better value. This fits perfectly with a bulk WooCommerce order form.

Use your bulk order form with the official WooCommerce Dynamic Pricing plugin. Set up quantity discounts to reward customers for buying in bulk. It's a great way to increase your revenue from the same number of customers!

Speed up the bulk ordering process by skipping the cart page

Finally, you can speed up the buying process even further by automatically directing customers to their cart when a product is added. This option is found under WooCommerce → Settings → Products. Just check the box next to Redirect to the cart page after successful addition:

The WooCommerce Add to Cart settings.

You can even use a dedicated plugin to skip the cart completely, and move customers directly to the checkout page. Customers who order in bulk are usually busy people, after all. The quicker you can make the buying process, the better their experience will be.

Create a bulk WooCommerce order form today!

If you're only selling a handful of items, then it makes sense to feature them on separate pages. However, if you're moving a lot of products on a daily basis, then you need a better way to display them. For shop owners, this means using a WooCommerce bulk order form pluign.

Choose whichever plugin is best for your store:

Both plugins come with full support and a no-risk 30-day money back guarantee. They only take a few minutes to set up, so install your chosen plugin and start selling in bulk today!

Do you have any questions about how to build the perfect WooCommerce bulk order form? Let us know in the comments section below!

Image credit: Wikipedia.

Selling services WordPress plugin

In today's online world, people expect to view and buy absolutely everything online. This goes way beyond ordering physical products. If you sell services then it's equally important to add a WordPress services list to your website. It's surprisingly easy to sell services online.

In this ultimate guide to selling service products, I'm going to teach you how to create a WordPress services list using a choice of plugins. We'll learn how to list and sell services on a WordPress e-commerce site with either WooCommerce or Easy Digital Downloads.

You'll discover how to sell services for a fixed one-off price, by the hour or day, or sell recurring services with ongoing subscription payments. Along the way, I'll provide useful tips on how your WordPress services list can upsell and sell more services to each customer.

Let's get started!

What is a WordPress services list?

A service is defined as "The action of helping or doing work for someone". This means that services are work that you provide manually for a person or organization. Selling services differs from selling products because you provide them directly to each customer. This may be face-to-face in person, or online. The key point is that you (or your employees/contractors) will be personally involved in providing services. In other words, you'll be service providers. A service cannot be fully automated, because if this happens then it becomes a product instead!

With this in mind, you might be wondering how to add a WordPress services list to your website. After all, a service is carried out manually and not online!

The answer is that you can create a WordPress services list by separating the sales and provision of the service. Services can be listed and sold online in a similar way to products. The difference is that once a customer has ordered a service online, you will carry out work for them manually instead of posting them a product. So you sell the service online, and carry it out in real life.

And of course, these days you can productize and automate services, too! For example, you might sell software-as-a-service (SAAS) on your website. The instructions in this article will work whether you carry out services manually or automatically. Either way, you'll learn how to create a WordPress services list with options and 'Buy' buttons.

How listing services in WordPress works

  1. Sell services WordPress pluginFirst, the customer visits your website and views WordPress services list This might be a simple list of one or more services, or you might provide variation options. You might sell one-off services for a fixed price, or charge by the hour. Perhaps you'll generate recurring revenue by selling subscriptions to your services? You might have a dedicated page for ordering service, or your WordPress services list might appear in an e-commerce order form directly on the pages describing your services.
  2. Second, the customer orders the service directly from the WordPress services listThey choose any options from the WordPress services list and adds the service to the cart. They then view the cart and checkout, including paying online with credit card/debit card or PayPal checkout. The customer receives a 'Thank you for your order' email, and you receive an email with the order information. You can use this option with either WooCommerce or Easy Digital Downloads, including with the option for extensions such as selling time-based bookings - I'll show you how to do all of these later.
  3. Finally, you contact the customer to arrange to provide the service This can be done outside of your WordPress website, or automatically depending on your setup. Either way, it will fit nicely into your usual working processes.

Do I need an e-commerce plugin to create a WordPress services list?

If you want to keep it really simple, then you might want a WordPress services list without the e-commerce side of things. However, you'd be missing out on many advantages of using e-commerce to sell services online.

Benefits of adding e-commerce to your list of services

  • Online payment for services By using a WordPress e-commerce plugin such as Easy Digital Downloads or WooCommerce, you can sell services and take payment online. There's a choice of payment gateways such as PayPal and Stripe. This saves you time compared to collecting payment offline and chasing invoices. It's also better for your service business' cash flow because customers pay upfront, before you provide the service.
  • List services more effectively When we get to the e-commerce section of this tutorial, I'll show you how to list services in a searchable pricing table with filters, buy buttons and extra information. This is vital if you're listing more than a couple of services.
  • Easier to upsellWordPress e-commerce plugins come with options to sell more services through up-selling and cross-selling. This can involve advertising one service on the sales page for another service. Or it can involve adding optional extras to encourage each customer to buy more. Either way, it's easier to do this if you link your WordPress services list with WooCommerce or Easy Digital Downloads.
  • Built-in recording and invoicing With a simple service order form that doesn't use e-commerce, your sales aren't recorded anywhere. You have to maintain manual records about the services provided. In contrast, an e-commerce plugin keeps records of all your sales and sends invoices or payment receipts. This saves you admin time. To save even more time, there are even WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads extensions to automatically send data to accounting software such as Xero and QuickBooks.
  • Reporting E-commerce plugins come with embedded analytics and reporting. You can see statistics on who has bought your services and which are selling best, directly in the WordPress Dashboard. This helps you to make your service business more successful, making ongoing improvements over time.
  • Offer appointments more efficientlyIf you're selling bookable appointments, you can save time and money by selling these services through WordPress. The easy of use should also drive more sales for you.

Some examples: Service products you can sell online

Service professions needing WordPress plugin to sell online

Before we start with the setup instructions, I'll share some examples of services that you can sell online. You can sell any type of service in WordPress, for example:

  • Professional services - architecture, conveyancing, document preparation and review, legal services, real estate advice, medical, will writing.
  • Design services - brand identity work, graphic design, image editing, infographics, online interior design, stationery (business cards, brochures, flyers, leaflets, print layouts)
  • Expert services - online business, copywriting, CV writing and resumes, career development, coaching, consulting, lifestyle, life coaching, love and relationships, marketing, photography, search engine optimization (SEO), social media, web analytics.
  • Technical services - printing, programming and software development, sound mixing, technical support.

As well as selling your time, you can package services into specific 'products' which people can select and order from you, such as website technical support, online training sessions or coaching webinars. For example, we had one web design client who used his WordPress website to sell remote Skype advice sessions. If you're a blogger or freelance writer, you might be interested in selling blogging services.

You can find more ideas for services to sell online on Google. For example, Amazon lets people sell professional services (such as assembling and installing products) through their site. Similarly, Fiverr is an online marketplace for freelance services. Whatever type of services you offer, keep reading to learn how to sell them online in WordPress.

Which e-commerce plugin is best for selling services in WordPress?

There are two main e-commerce plugins which are perfect for creating a WordPress services order form:

  • WooCommerce Developers LogoWooCommerce is the world's leading e-commerce plugin, powering over 44% of all online stores. While it does let you sell physical products, it also comes with virtual products that are perfect for selling WooCommerce services.
  • Easy Digital Downloads LogoEasy Digital Downloads is popular for selling virtual and digital products in WordPress. It's generally used to sell downloadable products such as WordPress plugins or ebooks. It's also ideal for selling services in Easy Digital Downloads.

Even better, both WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads are free WordPress plugins. I'll recommend some paid add-ons that will help you to sell services more effectively. However, the core e-commerce plugins are free of charge.

Choosing an e-commerce plugin for selling services online

Like I said, WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads are both good options for selling services in WordPress. So which one should you use?

A lot of service businesses sell using Easy Digital Downloads because it only deals with virtual products. This keeps it simple behind the scenes. WooCommerce comes with several shipping options (such as shipping rates, tax calculation, and shipping labels) many of which are on offer with WooCommerce Services plugin from Jetpack. However, the fact that WooCommerce can sell physical or virtual products isn't a disadvantage. If you disable the shipping options then these will disappear anyway, which keeps things nice and simple in the WordPress admin.

There are a few reasons to choose WooCommerce over Easy Digital Downloads:

  • If there's any chance that you might sell physical products and need to charge postage one day, then you should definitely choose WooCommerce. This simply isn't possible with Easy Digital Downloads.
  • It's also slightly easier to use WooCommerce to display the WordPress services list in a table. I'll show you how to do this with both plugins in the next sections. However, there's one extra step with Easy Digital Downloads that happens automatically with WooCommerce.
  • If you want to sell your time based on the number of hours or days, instead of charging a set price for each service, then WooCommerce is best.

If any of these points apply to you, then I'd recommend selling services in WooCommerce rather than EDD. Otherwise, they're both excellent options and you should read about each one to choose which is best for selling your services.

Tutorial 1: How to sell services with WooCommerce

1. First, set up WooCommerce

  1. In the WordPress admin, go to Plugins → Add New and search for 'WooCommerce'.
  2. Install the main WooCommerce plugin and activate it.
  3. After you activate WooCommerce, you'll be invited to run the Setup Wizard. Do this, and choose your store currency, tax settings, etc. When it asks "Will you be shipping products?", do not tick this box. You're selling services, so you won't need the shipping settings.
  4. On the payment gateways page, enter the email address that you use to log into PayPal to accept PayPal payments for services. I recommend Stripe for credit card and debit card payments (you'll need a Stripe.com account for this). Ideally, add your PayPal and Stripe account so that customers can choose how to pay for your services. If you want to give your customer base a 'Pay Later' option of paying manually offline too, choose the 'Check' payment option. You can then change the wording for this payment gateway as needed. (Tip - it doesn't need to say 'Check' at all - this is just a handy way of creating an offline payment method in WooCommerce.)
  5. At the end of the Setup Wizard, click the button to Create Your First Product.

For more in-depth tutorials on setting up WooCommerce, check out these guides.

2. Add service products to WooCommerce

  1. Add WooCommerce service subscription product
    You'll be taken to the Add Product screen. This is where you'll add the first service to sell in WooCommerce.
  2. Add a product title and description, plus categories and tags as required. Also upload a product image if you like, although this isn't essential for selling services with WooCommerce.
  3. Scroll down to the 'Product Data' section. Tick the 'Virtual' box and add a price for the service. (Note: Skip ahead for instructions on selling services by the hour or day, multiple options for each service, or ongoing service subscriptions.)
  4. Use the 'Inventory' tab to limit the number of each service that people can buy from you in WooCommerce. This is useful if you have limited capacity. There's also a box that you can tick to prevent customers from buying more than one of each service.
  5. Click 'Publish'.
  6. Go to Products → Add New and repeat these steps for each service that you want to sell in WooCommerce.

3. Create a WordPress services list of your WooCommerce products

Selling services in WooCommerce plugin table

Next, we need to display your service products on the front end of your website. This is essential so that people can view your services in WooCommerce and buy them online.

WooCommerce comes with some built-in layouts for displaying products. Unfortunately, these aren't at all suitable for selling services. You don't want your service website to look like a clothes shop!

Instead, you need to showcase your list of services in WordPress in a professional-looking table layout. You can do this using the WooCommerce Product Table plugin. Once you've added your services as WooCommerce products, the Product Table plugin will automatically list them in a user-friendly table layout.

Sell Services in WordPress listed on services page

Why is a table good for listing services in WordPress?

Services sell better in a WooCommerce table because:

  • This layout prioritizes information rather than images. (You can include a small thumbnail picture if you like.)
  • If you have lots of services, it's easier for customers to find the services they need via built-in filters and keyword search box. Customers can view prices, choose options and add services to the cart directly from this service pricing table layout. For more information (like testimonials), customers can simply click through to the single page.
  • The other benefit of displaying WordPress services in a table is that you can insert the table anywhere on your website, without using a website builder.

For example, a lot of WordPress sites have a 'Services' pages containing text describing their services. It's best to display the WordPress services list for purchase directly on the Services page, instead of linking customers to a separate shop page. You can add an e-commerce table of service products directly within the content of your service pages, keeping everything in one place.

How to show a WordPress services list in a WooCommerce table

  1. Install the WooCommerce Product Table plugin on your WordPress website and activate it.
  2. Header over to WooCommerce → Settings → Products → Product tables.
  3. Paste your license key from the confirmation email.
  4. Read through all the product table options, and choose the ones that will present your services most effectively.
  5. Next, create a page where you want to create a list of services in WordPress. Alternatively, edit an existing page on your website. For example, you might want to list the service options with prices and buy buttons directly on a page which already describes your services.
  6. Click the 'Insert product table' toolbar button to add the following shortcode to the page [product_table].
  7. This will show all your list of services on the page. If you'd rather list specific services only (e.g. based on their category or tag), then you can do this instead.

Your finished table of services might look something like this:

Selling WordPress services plugin example

Nice!

4. Use product variations to provide a choice of services

In step 2, I told you how to create a simple service product with a fixed price and no options. WooCommerce also supports variable service products.

The instructions to create a service with variation options are similar to the ones in section 2, above. However, when you go to the Product Data section, use the Product Type dropdown to select 'Variable Product'. You then need to create attributes on the Attributes tab, and select these to create variations on the Variations tab. For each variation, you need to add a price and tick the 'Virtual' box to use it to sell services.

In this example services list, I created a 'Legal Services' product with a 'Service Type' attribute. I used this to create variations for 'Conveyancing', 'Wills' and 'Divorce Services', each with their own service cost:

Sell service product with variations WooCommerce

If you select variation dropdowns on the WooCommerce Product Table plugin settings page, then the table will list 1 product per row. Each product will have a dropdown so that customers can choose variation options.

Alternatively, if you selected the separate variations option, then it might look something like this:

WooCommerce services with variation on each row separate
WooCommerce Product Table with each service variation on a separate row

Both are good options for selling options from the WordPress services list.

5. Use WooCommerce subscriptions to sell regular ongoing services

So far, we've talked about create a WordPress WooCommerce services list with a one-off price for each service. This may fit your business model, but most small business owners know that recurring revenue is the holy grail. With this in mind, you might want to sell ongoing subscription services via your WordPress website.

Fortunately, you can do this with the official WooCommerce Subscriptions extension. This will set up an ongoing payment plan or subscription for each service. The customer will be billed automatically at the correct intervals, using their chosen payment gateway.

Selling WooCommerce services subscription products

WooCommerce Product Table with Subscription Service Products
  1. First create a subscription on the plugin settings page.
  2. Next, instead of creating a Simple Product, you should select 'Subscription Product' from the 'Product Type' dropdown.
  3. Set an ongoing cost for your service, for example an initial setup fee followed by a regular monthly payment.

Both PayPal and Stripe support recurring subscription payments. This is much better than sending invoices for manual payment each month. No more chasing overdue invoices - it all happens automatically via your WordPress website and WooCommerce!

See it in action on our pet sitting services demo page with subscription products!

Please note that WooCommerce Product Table doesn't work with variable subscriptions. To use the plugins together, we recommend adding each subscription option as a separate product. Another option is to add the options as product add-ons instead of variations. The add-on options will appear in the add to cart column of the table of subscription services.

6. Use product add-ons to sell optional extras

Let's say you're selling website maintenance services. You might have created 3 service products: Weekly Maintenance, Fortnightly Maintenance, and Monthly Maintenance. But how can you sell more services to each customer?

The answer is the WooCommerce Product Options extension. This handy plugin lets you add a range of optional extras to your service products in WooCommerce. These appear alongside the add to cart button, offering a powerful incentive for customers to order more from you.

In the following example, I used Product Options to add tick boxes for extra dog grooming service options. As well as ordering a basic dog grooming session, customers can tick boxes to add different types of doggy haircut. The dog grooming products are displayed using the WooCommerce Product Table plugin with Product Options and Subscriptions. As you can see, this is a great way to significantly increase revenue, from the same number of customers.

Selling WooCommerce services with Product Add-Ons plugin
WooCommerce Product Table with the official Product Options plugin

How to sell services by the hour or day

You've learned how to use WooCommerce to sell services for a fixed price. But what if you want to sell your time, rather than a specific service? Luckily, you can do that too.

To sell critical services based on the amount of time, the instructions are similar to the ones I provided above. You'll just need to activate a few extra options on the WooCommerce Products Table settings page:

  1. Tick the 'Quantity' box to display a quantity picker in the add to cart column for each service.
  2. When you set your product table columns, use these instructions to customize the 'Buy' column heading. It needs to be clear that the service is priced by the hour or day.

For example, if your WordPress services list contains columns for name, short description and add to cart column, then you need to list the columns like this: image,name,summary,price:Price Per Hour,buy:Select Hours & Buy

WooCommerce selling services by the hour

Alternatively, if you're not selling all your services by the hour, then you can just add the unit to the product name. Here's an example of what this might look like when you list WordPress services:

WordPress sell services charge by time

Tip: Use quick view to provide more information

By now, you know how to display a list of services in WordPress in a table layout. Maybe you want to show extra information about each service, but don't want to send people to a separate page for each service. Maybe you have too many variations or add-on options to fit into the table view.

If this applies to you, then you can add the WooCommerce Quick View Pro plugin to show extra information and purchase options from a lightbox window:

WooCommerce Product Table Quick View Magnifying Glass

Get WooCommerce Quick View


How to sell services in Easy Digital Downloads

Next, I'll reveal how to use Easy Digital Downloads (EDD) to create a WordPress services list. This is similar to WooCommerce, so read about the two e-commerce plugins and choose the one that best suits your needs.

Easy Digital Downloads is nice because it's simple and only contains the features you need to sell virtual products such as services. There's nothing extra to weigh it down, such as shipping options which you don't need for listing services.

However, the downside of EDD is that it's less popular. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it means that fewer companies have developed useful add-ons and extensions for it. For example, you can use EDD to create your WordPress services list - but you can't add the other handy plugins which I mentioned in the WooCommerce section above. For example, there's no Easy Digital Downloads quick view or product add-ons plugin.

But if EDD is the right e-commerce plugin for your WordPress services list, then this is how to set it up:

1. First, set up Easy Digital Downloads

  1. In the WordPress dashboard, head to Plugins → Add New. Type 'Easy Digital Downloads' into the search box.
  2. Install and activate the plugin.
  3. Navigate to Downloads → Settings and choose the settings that you'll use to sell services with Easy Digital Downloads.

2. Add your services in Easy Digital Downloads

Selling services Easy Digital Downloads
Now it's time to start adding your services as EDD products:

  1. Go to Downloads → Add New.
  2. Add your EDD service product name and description. You can also add categories and tags, plus an image if this will help to promote the service.
  3. Add the service price.
  4. Click Publish.
  5. Repeat these steps for each service that you want to sell using Easy Digital Downloads.

3. Use product variations to provide a choice of services

Like WooCommerce, Easy Digital Downloads also comes with a 'Variable Pricing' option. You'll see this when you add the price for your service in EDD. If you want to offer different options for a particular service, tick this box and add all the options. Set a price for each service option.

You can use this to provide quantity discounts to reward customers to buying more services, or for selling different service options at different prices.

Sell services Easy Digital Downloads variations

4. Create an Easy Digital Downloads WordPress services list

Next, we need to list your services for sale on the front end of your WordPress website.

Like other WordPress e-commerce plugins, the standard Easy Digital Downloads store layouts aren't ideal for selling services. This isn't surprising, because they're mainly designed to sell digital products such as ebooks and WordPress plugins.

You can showcase the WordPress services list more effectively with the Posts Table Pro plugin. This dynamic WordPress table plugin lets you list all sorts of content from your website in a table view. It's particularly popular for creating an Easy Digital Downloads product table.

Customers can view your WordPress services list anywhere on your website, see the price and any other data you choose to display, select options, and add services to the cart. They can then checkout and pay for their services online with Easy Digital Downloads.

How to list services in an Easy Digital Downloads table

  1. Install the Posts Table Pro plugin on your WordPress website and activate it.
  2. Go to Post Tables → Settings and activate your license key from the order confirmation email.
  3. Follow the instructions in this tutorial to list your EDD service products in a table. You can use Easy Digital Downloads to sell services via any page on your website. Just put the Posts Table Pro shortcode wherever you want to display your WordPress services list.

Your finished table of Easy Digital Downloads service products might look similar to this:

Selling Services Easy Digital Downloads Plugin

Perfect!

5. Sell service subscriptions with Easy Digital Downloads

Finally, you can install the EDD Recurring Payments extension to take regular payments for services. This automates the payment for regular services, so you don't need to worry about taking payment manually.

Selling bookable services with EDD bookings

You can also use the EDD Bookings extension to sell services using Easy Digital Downloads. This means that a client can pay for a service for a specific period of time. This can apply to doctor's appointments, yoga sessions, consultancies, hairdresser appointments and much more.

Once the extension is installed, you can set up Services, each with its own set of criteria.

Every service will have its own name, description and image, all of which are used when the client selects a service from the booking form. A service will also have one or more session types. For example, a consultancy could be offered as a 30-minute session or a 60-minute session. They would each have their own price.

The availability of a service is when it will be available for booking. As an admin, you can set up various rules to determine the dates and times your clients will see as bookable on the calendar in the booking form.

To list your bookable EDD products on your website, follow the instructions in the previous section to list them with Posts Table Pro. Instead of having purchase buttons directly in the table, use the 'Links' option to allow customers to click through to the single download page for each service. From there, they can complete the booking form and purchase the service.

As the business owner, you will be able to monitor all your bookings from a list or calendar view. You may also create bookings manually from the back-end, which works great for bookings that are requested in-person, on the phone or via email.

If you want customers to book specific times, then combining Posts Table Pro with EDD Bookings is the perfect solution.

Start selling services in WordPress!

Even though you carry out services manually, you can save time and get more customers by selling services in WordPress. Use the instructions above to display the WordPress services list and let customers order services online and pay manually, or automate the sales process for your services using WooCommerce or Easy Digital Downloads. Once you've added your list of services to WordPress as e-commerce products, use either WooCommerce Product Table or Posts Table Pro to display them in a user-friendly layout.

This is the best way to attract customers and sell more services. To take things to the next level, you can set up an email marketing and digital marketing strategy to promote your services.

If you've used any of the methods in this tutorial to sell and list your services in WordPress, please let me know how you get on. I'd love to add some case studies to this article (which will include a link to your website!). Please add your comments below.

WooCommerce hide category from shop page plugin

Need to hide a WooCommerce category from the shop page? Sometimes you might have products that you don't want to publicly list on your shop page. To your dismay, though, WooCommerce doesn't have the option to hide categories from the shop page.

One of the key features of WooCommerce is its ability to organize products into categories, making it easy for customers to navigate and find what they're looking for. However, there may be times when you want to hide a particular category of products from the shop page.

Sometimes you need a happy medium between hiding a single product and hiding your entire WooCommerce store. Perhaps you have some products that are not quite ready for public release, or maybe you want to restrict certain items to a specific group of customers. Whatever the reason, you may be disappointed to learn that there is no option for WooCommerce hide category from shop page.

This can be a frustrating problem, especially if you have spent a lot of time and effort creating your WooCommerce product categories and organizing your inventory. Thankfully, there are a few methods available that can help you achieve your goal of hide category from shop page WooCommerce.

Benefits of hiding categories in WooCommerce

One of the key features of WooCommerce is its ability to organize products into categories, which can be helpful for customers who are trying to find specific products on the website.

However, there are situations where WordPress site owners may need to hide category WooCommerce of products. For example, if a product is out of stock or has been discontinued, you may not want that category to be displayed on the WordPress website. This can help to avoid confusion for customers who may be interested in the product, only to find that it is not available for purchase.

Another reason why it's important to be able to use WooCommerce hide category feature is to simplify the navigation of the website. When there are too many categories displayed on the website, it can be overwhelming for customers to find the products they are looking for. By hiding specific categories on your ecommerce store, you can provide a simplified user experience for your customers and potentially improve your store's SEO or search engine ranking. Hiding irrelevant categories reduces clutter, highlights the most relevant products, and can lead to higher customer engagement and satisfaction, ultimately resulting in increased conversions.

hide woocommerce categories example

When to hide categories in your WooCommerce store

Effective category management is a key aspect of running a successful online store. Improving website usability and enhancing the customer experience can be achieved by strategically hiding certain categories in WooCommerce. To learn how to hide categories in WooCommerce and implement this effective approach, continue reading. Here are some common examples of when hiding categories can be beneficial for WooCommerce shops:

  • Discontinued products: When a product is no longer available for purchase, it's important to remove it from the website to avoid confusion. By hiding the category of discontinued products, you can ensure that customers don't see or try to checkout these items.
  • Out of stock items: If a product is temporarily out of stock, you may want to hide category WooCommerce until the product is back in stock. This can help to avoid customer frustration and reduce the number of inquiries about the availability of the product.
  • Seasonal products: Some products may only be relevant during certain times of the year. For example, Christmas decorations may only be relevant during the holiday season. By hiding the category of seasonal products during the off-season, you can create a more streamlined user experience and avoid overwhelming customers with irrelevant products.
  • Restricted products: Some products may be restricted by age, location, or other criteria. By hiding the category of restricted products, you can ensure that only eligible customers are able to access these items.

Exploring different methods to hide WooCommerce categories

If you want to hide specific categories on your WooCommerce shop page, there are two main methods you can use.

Method 1: Using a plugin to hide categories

Using a plugin is the recommended method for hide category from shop page WooCommerce. The main benefit of using a plugin is that it is easy to use, even if you don't have much technical knowledge. All you need to do is install the plugin, activate it, and then configure the settings for WooCommerce hide the category from shop page.

To help, we're going to show you how to hide a category in WooCommerce shop page via a user-friendly plugin.

Our simple written tutorial and video will show you how to customize how your hidden WooCommerce categories function - all without writing a single line of code.

WooCommerce school category visibility

Method 2: Hiding categories with code snippets

The second method for hide category from shop page WooCoomerce involves using code snippets. This method requires more technical knowledge than using a plugin, but it can be useful if you want more control over how categories are hidden.

To use this method, you will need to add some code snippets to your theme's functions.php file or to a custom plugin. You can find code snippets for hide category WooCommerce stores, and then modify them to suit your specific needs.

You can customize the code for WooCommerce hide category from shop page in a specific way or to achieve a particular result. However, it's worth noting that using code snippets can be risky if you don't know what you're doing, as a mistake could break your site or cause other issues.

The best plugin to hide a WooCommerce category

The problem

There are lots of reasons why you might want to use WooCommerce hide category from shop page from the main page. For example, maybe you're creating a WooCommerce wholesale store and need to hide the wholesale categories from the shop page. Maybe you're selling customer-specific products, with a hidden category for each company.

Whatever you're reason, unfortunately, WooCommerce doesn't come with an option to do this.

While it is possible to use a PHP function for WooCommerce hide category from shop page, that solution:

  • Isn't very user-friendly because it requires you to work directly with PHP code, rather than a human-friendly interface.
  • Makes it difficult to change which categories are hidden later on, because you'll need to dive back into the code every time you want to make an adjustment.

The solution

WooCommerce Protected Categories offers a simpler solution to hide a WooCommerce category (including all products/subcategories inside). It:

  • Gives you more flexibility than the WooCommerce PHP function in terms of how shoppers interact with your hidden categories.
  • Lets you choose which categories to hide right from your WordPress dashboard.
  • Lets you decide whether use WooCommerce hide category from the shop page completely, or whether to show them but require customers to enter a password or login to access a protected category or its products.

How does this WooCommerce hide categories plugin work?

To hide WooCommerce categories, you can use the WooCommerce Protected Categories plugin. It enables you to conceal one or multiple WooCommerce product category within your WooCommerce store. When you hide a category from the shop page…

  • All the products inside that category are also hidden.
  • You can choose whether or not to display hidden categories and their products on your shop page, category pages, archive pages, and search results.
  • With the WooCommerce hide product category functionality, you have the flexibility to decide whether hidden categories and their associated products should be visible in your navigation menus and widgets.

And as I mentioned earlier, you can "unhide" your categories via:

  • A password - once a user enters a correct password, the plugin automatically unlocks all the products in that category. They can then navigate through the hidden category and its sub-categories without having to re-enter the password.
  • User roles - by utilizing the WooCommerce hide category by user role feature, you can restrict visibility of hidden categories and their corresponding products exclusively to users with specific user roles.
  • Individual users - only selected logged in users can see the hidden category and its products.

Have a read through this glowing review from a happy customer using the WooCommerce Protected Categories plugin:

Excellent plugin!
I highly recommend Barn2's 'WooCommerce Password Protected Categories' plugin for a whole range of uses. For our particular use, we needed to allow only certain categories of our products to be accessed by 'select' customers, with a shared password. The plugin enabled us to do this really simply and cost-effectively. Whenever we have needed any assistance with the plugin Barn2's team have been very helpful and prompt with their replies. I'm sure this is a decision you won't regret.

Step-by-step guide: How to hide WooCommerce categories with WooCommerce Protected Categories

Below, we'll show you how to hide WooCommerce categories on shop page using WooCommerce Protected Categories.

Step 1: Choose how to hide your categories

First, install and activate WooCommerce Protected Categories in the WordPress admin panel. Next, go to Products → Categories to hide WooCommerce categories on shop page.

You can either create a new category to house your hidden products or you can edit an existing category. Whichever method you choose, you'll see a new Visibility section at the bottom of the page. Click the 'Protected' option, and choose between:

  • Unlock WooCommerce category for logged in usersPassword protected Visitors will need to enter a password to see the category. You can create multiple passwords to unlock the category if desired.
  • User roles Your category will only be visible to certain user roles.
  • Users Your category will only be visible to the users that you select here.

Once you've hide WooCommerce categories on shop page or category page via either method, go to WooCommerce → Settings → Products → Protected categories to configure a few more basic settings.

Step 2: Configure general plugin settings

One especially important group of settings is Category Visibility.

If you want to completely remove a WooCommerce category from the shop page, you should uncheck both boxes. Alternatively, tick both boxes to still display the category, but require users to enter a password or login to see its contents.

Use the other settings to control your password login form, and what happens when a logged-out user tries to access a protected category:

WooCommerce Protected Categories Visibility Settings

Step 3: Enable password protection, user role restriction, and more

Once you've hide WooCommerce categories on shop page, you'll want to provide other ways for selected customers to access them. There are a few ways to do this, depending on whether you've hidden the categories behind password protection or user login.

Providing access to WooCommerce password protected categories

Create a central category login form by adding the shortcode [category_login] to any page. Customers will be directed to the hidden category with the password they have entered. Once unlocked, the customer will be able to see the protected category, products and pricing and cart buttons on the main Woo shop page. The protected content will remain hidden from the store catalog for everyone else. As store owner, you can customize the hidden category login page in the plugin settings.

ooCommerce hide category from shop page

Providing access for a user or role-protected WooCommerce categories

If you've created user or role protected categories, then there are some different settings for your hidden categories. These let you choose what happens when someone without the correct privileges (e.g. a logged out user) tries to access a WooCommerce hidden category or product.

WooCommerce protected categories redirect for logged out users

To provide access to the WooCommerce hidden category, simply encourage users to login as usual. For example, they can login using the WooCommerce Account page, which shows a login form for logged out users.

I also recommend using the free Peter's Login Redirect plugin. Use it to redirect users to the correct hidden category after they log in. This gives you fine-grained control over where each individual user or user role is redirected after logging in.

Real-world applications: eLearning Launchpad Case study

eLearning Launch Pad hide category pageeLearning Launchpad is a US training course provider. Our WooCommerce Protected Categories plugin hides its product categories, working alongside Wp Enhanced’s Free Downloads WooCommerce Pro plugin.

Attendees download course materials ahead of the training session. But these materials need to be kept private. That’s why they needed a WooCommerce hide category WordPress plugin. Files are hidden behind a password protected category page and eLearning Launchpad sends out passwords to access the page. From there, customers can download materials. The Free Downloads WooCommerce Pro plugin lets eLearning Launchpad capture customer data before files are downloaded.

The downloads are set up as WooCommerce products even though they aren’t being sold on the ecommerce site. This is to simplify managing the downloads and take advantage of the benefits, such as being able to hide categories and products in WooCommerce.

WooCommerce hide category

Below, I'll show you how to use this WooCommerce hide category plugin…

Alternative method: How to hide categories through shortcodes

Another way to utilize WooCommerce hide category on your main shop page is by using HTML and CSS. This method requires some technical knowledge.

First, you need to inspect the category you want to hide on your product page using your browser's developer tools. You can then identify the HTML element that represents the category and its ID or class. Once you have this information, you can add some custom code that hides the category by setting its display property to "none."

It is important to note that using how to hide categories in WooCommerce only affects their visual display and does not impose any actual access restrictions. Users can still access the hidden category through direct links or by typing its URL. So, if you want to restrict access to the category, you'll need to use the WooCommerce Protected Categories plugin.

It's worth noting that if you're not familiar with coding, using this method can also be risky. A mistake in your code could break your site or cause other issues. Therefore, you should only use this method if you have some basic knowledge of HTML and CSS or if you're working with an experienced WordPress developer.

Best practices in WooCommerce category management

Efficient category management is crucial for a well-organized and user-friendly online store. Here are some tips to optimize your category management process. Use them to ensure smooth navigation and a seamless shopping experience for customers:

  1. Organize categories thoughtfully: Take the time to carefully plan and structure your categories. Ensure that they are logical, intuitive, and reflect the products you offer. Consider creating subcategories or using parent-child relationships to further organize your products. This helps customers easily locate the items they are looking for and improves the overall browsing experience.
  2. Utilize conditional rules: Leverage the power of conditional rules to further customize category visibility. With the right plugin, like WooCommerce Protected Categories, you can set up rules based on user roles, membership levels, or other criteria. For example, you can hide specific categories from general customers while making them accessible to VIP members-only. This level of control allows you to provide tailored experiences to different customer segments.
  3. Prioritize category display: If you have overlapping or conflicting rules for category visibility, prioritize the display order. For example, if a customer belongs to multiple user roles, you can prioritize the display of categories associated with their highest role.
  4. Regularly review and update: Category management is an ongoing process. Regularly review your category structure, rules, and priorities to accommodate any changes in your product offerings or customer segments. Monitor customer feedback and behavior to identify areas for improvement or potential adjustments to your category management strategy.
  5. Test and optimize: Experiment with different category arrangements, conditional rules, and priority settings. This lets you find the optimal configuration for your specific business needs. Test the user experience and gather feedback to fine-tune your category management strategy.

Start hiding WooCommerce categories today!

If you have products that you don't want to publicly list on your WooCommerce shop page, you can easily hide them using the Protected Categories plugin. This is the best WooCommerce hide category from shop page option. That's because it's easy to use and doesn't require technical knowledge.

The plugin is super-flexible. You can choose to require a password, restrict access to certain user roles, or only allow specific individual users to view the hidden categories.

Questions about how to hide a category in WooCommerce shop page? Leave a comment and we'll do our best to help.

WordPress archive plugin

When your website or blog has been going for a while, you’ll probably need to list posts on an archive page. Maybe you want to list WordPress posts from a specific day, month, year, author, category, tag, or something else. That’s when you need a WordPress archive plugin.

The best WordPress archive plugins provide a quick and easy way for your users to find previous posts or articles on your site.

Keep reading to learn how to use the Posts Table Pro plugin to create various types of archive listing posts on any WordPress website:

  • Build a WordPress date archive - either listing daily posts, monthly posts, or yearly.
  • Make an author archive page automatically listing blog posts by a specific user.
  • Create a category archive.
  • List posts in an archive along with extra post metadata such as featured image, date, excerpt, content, and author.
  • Create a responsive jQuery WordPress table-based archive with extras such as a search box and filters.
  • Structure your archive page by adding collapsible accordions or toggles, or list posts under multiple tabs (e.g. with a separate tab for each month).
  • Create a WordPress archive for normal blog posts or any custom post type.
  • Turn any page on your site into a WordPress archive page, or create a custom archive template.

Related Tutorial: How to Create a WordPress A-Z Index Listing.

The problem with WordPress archives

WordPress itself comes with an archive widget listing all the months. Users can click on a month to view the posts from that month. Your theme will also come with a category, tag, and author archive template.

The problem with these is that each of these archive pages uses the same layout as your main blog page. That’s not really what archives are for.

I believe that archives are a way for people to easily find older content on your site. For example, they might use an archive page to find posts from a specific date, category or tag. The default blog layout isn’t really suitable for archived posts. This is because there are so many of them and it’s hard to find what you want.

Instead, you need a WordPress archive plugin that lists posts in an easy-to-find format, with extra data about each one. That’s where Posts Table Pro comes in!

Posts Table Pro - the best WordPress archive plugin

WordPress archive plugin

Posts Table Pro is a WordPress table plugin ideal for creating any type of website archive. It groups and lists WordPress posts based on day, month, year, category, tag, author, and more.

By using Posts Table Pro as your WordPress archive plugin, you can create user-friendly archive pages that quickly direct users to the content they’re looking for. You can add extra post metadata in the table such as the featured image, categories, tags, date, author, and even custom fields and taxonomies.

Posts Table Pro

As well as structuring the archive in an easy-to-navigate way, you can add extra navigation elements to help users to find posts more quickly. For example, they can click on any column to sort the archived posts. They can click on dropdown lists above the table to filter the archive based on data such as category, tag, or author. There’s even a handy keyword search above the list of posts.

All of this helps people to navigate the WordPress archive and find what they want more quickly. Once they find posts they’re interested in, the extra data makes them more likely to click through compared to a basic archive that only lists post titles. It’s a great way to improve user engagement and reduce bounce rates.

Ok, so now you know why Posts Table Pro is the best WordPress archive plugin. Below, I’ll tell you how to set it up to create different types of post-archive pages. Alternatively, you can watch us setting up a WordPress archive in this video:

Build a date archive listing daily posts, monthly posts, or yearly

WordPress date archive pluginThe most obvious type of WordPress archive page is probably a WordPress date archive. There are several ways to do this:

  • It could be a daily archive listing all posts that were published on a specific date. Single-day archives are ideal for news websites that publish many posts or articles per day.
  • A WordPress monthly archive lists all posts from a specific month. This is useful for blogs that publish posts regularly but not necessarily every day.
  • Alternatively, a WordPress yearly archive is an annual archive listing all posts published in a specific year. Personally, I think that annual archives are over-used on WordPress websites. Unless you publish very rarely, there’s no point listing all posts from a specific year because there will be too many. However, this is an option if it suits your blog.

To create a WordPress date archive listing posts by day, month, or year, first get Posts Table Pro and install it on your website. Follow the steps below to create your table:

  1. Use the instructions in the confirmation email to install and activate the plugin.
  2. After activation, the Posts Table Pro setup wizard will automatically open and guide you through entering your license key.
  3. Upon installing the Post Table Pro plugin, an automatic setup wizard will guide you through the process of creating your first table. Alternatively, you can navigate to Post Tables → Add New to create a new table at any time.
  4. Give your table a name and then choose the post type you wish to display. If you don't have a content type, it will guide you to create one using the free Easy Post Types and Fields plugin.
  5. Select the posts or pages you would like to include in the table.
  6. Customize your table to suit your preferences. You can determine which columns to display and in what order. In this case, add the date as a column. To add a new column, choose the column type from the dropdown menu and click "Add". You can also reorder columns by dragging and dropping the sort icon or column heading.
  7. Filters appear as dropdowns above the table, and you can add as many as you like. Available filter options will vary depending on the post type selected on the first page.
  8. Enable lazy loading to improve the table's performance, even when containing hundreds or thousands of items.
  9. Choose how to sort the table. You can set the default sorting option and the sort direction
  10. After you have finished creating your table using the Post Table Pro plugin, the setup wizard will confirm that you're done and offer instructions on how to add the table to your WordPress site. You can either use the "Post Table" block in the Gutenberg editor or copy the shortcode from the table builder and paste it anywhere on your site.

How to create a weekly post archive

Posts Table Pro doesn’t have the option to list posts by week. However, you can create a WordPress weekly archive by combining the day, month, and year options to list all 7 days from a specific week.

For example, the example shortcode above will list all posts published in the first week of January 2018.

How to create WordPress archive posts by month

To create WordPress archive posts by month using Posts Table Pro, follow these steps:

  1. Install and activate the Posts Table Pro plugin on your WordPress site.
  2. Create a new page or edit an existing one where you want to display the archive.
  3. Add the following shortcode to the page where you want to display the archive: [posts_table columns="title,date" date_format="F, Y" sort_by="date" sort_order="desc"][no_shortcodes]
  4. Save or update the page.
  5. View the page to see the archive of posts listed by month.

The above shortcode will display a table with the columns for the post title and date, sorted by the date in descending order. The 'date_format=”F, Y”' parameter tells the plugin to group the posts by month. Finally, 'posts_per_page="-1"' displays all posts on a single page. You can customize the shortcode parameters as needed to suit your requirements.

How to create an annual archive

To create an annual archive using the Posts Table Pro plugin in WordPress, follow these steps:

  1. Install and activate the Posts Table Pro plugin.
  2. Create a new page or edit an existing page where you want to display the annual archive.
  3. Insert the following shortcode into the page: [no_shortcodes][posts_table columns="title,date" date_format="Y" sort_by="date" sort_order="desc" ][no_shortcodes]
  4. Save or update the page.
  5. Visit the page to see the annual archive of posts displayed in a table format, with columns for the post date, title, and content.

This shortcode will display a table with all posts from the current year, grouped by month. Each row will display the post date, title, and content. You can customize the columns and date format to fit your needs.

Make an author archive page

Posts Table Pro also comes with an ‘author’ option. This makes it easy to create a WordPress author archive page. It will automatically list blog posts published by a specific user.

To create an author archive, install Posts Table Pro and add the following shortcode to the page:

[no_shortcodes][posts_table author="katie"]

This author archive shortcode will list all posts by the user ‘katie’. Replace my username with the username of the author for whom you’re creating an archive page.

Do this for each of the authors on your site. You can either list multiple authors’ posts in a single archive template by adding a comma between each one (e.g. author="katie,andy"). Or you can add the shortcode multiple times, each listing posted by a different author.

Create a category archive

By now, you should be getting the hang of this. You can use the ‘category’ option in this WordPress archive plugin to create a category archive listing posts from a specific category.

To list category posts in this way, add the following shortcode anywhere on your website:

[posts_table category="articles"]

Replace ‘articles’ with either the slug or ID for your category (but don’t use the category name). Use multiple shortcodes to create as many WordPress category archives as you like, each listing posts from a different category.

Build a WordPress tag archive

Categories are one way of structuring your blog posts - tags are another. Posts Table Pro makes it equally easy to create tag archives, listing posts with a specific tag in the table layout.

This shortcode will list posts all with the tag ‘food’:

[posts_table tag="food"]

Replace ‘food’ with the slug of the tag that you want to list in the archive.

List posts in an archive along with extra post metadata such as featured image, date, excerpt, content, and author

So far, we’ve just listed WordPress posts in an archive using the default column options. These are post ID, title, content, excerpt, image, date, author, categories, tags, status, or any custom field or taxonomy.

However, the great thing about Posts Table Pro is that you can list whatever data you like on your WordPress post archives. The archive plugin supports various different columns, including standard post metadata such as categories, tags, publish date, and author.

There are also lots of extra column options such as post-featured images, which add a nice visual element to the archive. If you’ve used custom fields or taxonomies to store extra data about your posts, you can also include these as archive columns. And if you’ve added multimedia content to your posts such as embedded audio, video players, or playlists, you can show these directly on the WordPress archive page too.

Think about which data will best encourage your users to click on a post to read it in full. Use this to decide which columns to add to the archive.

The following shortcode will create an annual archive of all blog posts from the year 2018. It has columns for image, post title, categories, author, and date:

[posts_table year="2018" columns="image,title,categories,author,date”]

Use the archive plugin knowledge base to learn which columns are available and how to add them to your WordPress archive page.

Create a responsive jQuery WordPress table-based archive with extras such as a search box and filters

Sortable posts table with filterPosts Table Pro is built on the popular jQuery DataTables plugin, which creates mobile-responsive HTML tables. It has many of the fantastic features that come with DataTables, such as a keyword search above the table, sortable columns, and filters.

The column sorting and search box will appear in your WordPress archives by default. You can choose whether to add filters for categories, tags, authors, or even a custom taxonomy. For example, this Posts Table Pro shortcode will create an archive of all posts. There are filters for categories, tags, and author, so users can quickly narrow down the list to find the posts they want:

[posts_table filters="categories,tags,author"]

You can add one or more filters above the post list archive, so add the ones that will be useful for your visitors.

Structure your archive page

example of wordpress a-z listing tabs

To keep things simple, you can list WordPress posts on an archive page containing a single table. To jazz things up a bit, you can add multiple tables to the page - each containing an archive of different posts. (E.g. a separate table of posts by each author, or a table for each month.)

Alternatively, you can create a more advanced archive layout by dividing up the archive page using tabs, accordions, or toggles.

A tabbed layout adds tabs across the top of the WordPress archive page. For example, you might add a tab for each month or year. Users can click on a tab to view a separate archive listing posts for that specific month/year.

In contrast, a toggle or accordion adds an expandable and collapsible content box. If you add multiple toggles or accordions, then they are listed vertically on top of each other. Again, users can click on one to view the list of posts within.

Tabs and accordions are neat ways to break up long archive pages. If you want to use them, the first step is to look at your theme to see if it comes pre-build with a tab or accordion feature. If not, then I recommend using the free Shortcodes Ultimate plugin to add your tabs and accordions. (That’s what I used to create the above screenshot.)

Related: Create an A-Z alphabetical index page in WordPress.

Create a WordPress archive for blog posts or any custom post type

WordPress document library plugin

So far, I’ve assumed that you’re creating an archive listing normal WordPress blog posts. By this, I mean the posts which are listed in the ‘Posts’ section of the WordPress Dashboard.

If you want to create a WordPress archive to list other types of content, that’s fine too! Posts Table Pro supports any custom post type. This means that you can create an archive of portfolio posts, events, case studies, products, articles, and much more. Just select the relevant post type on the plugin settings page.

Turn any page on your site into a WordPress archive page, or create a custom archive template

You can use the instructions I’ve provided so far to add table-based WordPress archives to any page or post on your site. It works on normal WordPress pages and posts, and also in the text element of any page builders plugin such as Visual Composer, Divi Builder, Beaver Builder, or Elementor. If you like, you can also add the Posts Table Pro shortcode to a Text widget (although I’m not sure why you’d want to do this!).

But what if you want to automatically use the table layout for your default archive templates, such as the built-in WordPress author archive, category archive, or tag archive pages?

This is possible, but it’s slightly more technical because you have to modify the archive templates build into your theme. The archive plugin WordPress knowledge base includes instructions on how to do this.

Note: These instructions will replace all your category and archive page layouts with the tabular Posts Table Pro layout. If you just want to use the post table layout on certain parts of your site then you’ll need to do some extra customization. This is a developer-level task and if you don’t know how to do it, then we recommend posting a job on Codeable. This is a good place to find a tried and tested WordPress expert with the right skills.

Does it work with the WordPress archive widget?

WordPress itself comes with a built-in archive widget which you can add to a sidebar anywhere on your site. This lists all the months when you have published posts. Users can click on this to view a monthly archive listing all posts from that month.

When someone clicks on a month in the WordPress archive widget, this will load the category archive template built into your theme. To show the tabular archive layout on this page, you need to add the Posts Table Pro shortcode directly to a custom archive template. Use the instructions above to do this.

Adding the table archive layout directly to a custom archive template is a good way to save time. For example, if you create monthly date archives by adding shortcodes directly to a page then you need to edit the page each month to add a shortcode for the latest month. By adding this directly to your template files, it will happen automatically.

How to remove archives in WordPress

To remove the archive in WordPress, you can either disable or remove the archive page. Here are the steps on how to remove archives in WordPress:

Disable Archive:

  1. Go to Appearance → Customize → Theme Options → Archives.
  2. Turn off the option for "Display Archives".

Remove Archive Page:

  1. Go to Pages → All Pages.
  2. Find the archive and click on "Trash" to delete it.
  3. You can also permanently delete the page by going to Trash and selecting "Delete Permanently".

It's important to note that removing the archive page may impact your site's SEO and user experience. If you're not sure if you want to remove the archive, it's best to consult with a developer or SEO expert first.

Other archive plugin options

In this tutorial, I’ve explained the most important features of using Posts Table Pro as an archive plugin WordPress. It also has dozens of other features that I haven’t mentioned. For example:

  • By default, your archive templates are sorted by date in reverse chronological order. You can change the sort order to anything you like. (E.g. order by title, author, custom field, reverse the sort order, etc.)
  • You can embed audio and video directly in the archive page table, for example, to create a WordPress audio archive library or video post archive.
  • 4 styles of pagination buttons to break up long post archives into multiple tables. Users can click the page numbers or previous/next buttons to navigate through the archive.
  • Lazy load option to speed up larger post archives

Case studies - 2 churches who used Posts Table Pro to create date-based newsletter archives

Rim of the World Church and Christendom Media both used Posts Table Pro to create a date-based archive of their past publications.  previous newsletter bulletins.

Rim of the World keeps it simple, with a newsletter archive page listing the title and date of each bulletin. Christendom Media list articles from an academic journal, with columns for the author as well title and date.

Both archives list WordPress posts in chronological order, with the most recent first. Users can sort by any column and use the keyword search box to find specific posts.

Using the WordPress archive plugin on your own site

As you can see, Posts Table Pro is easily the most flexible WordPress archive plugin out there. I hope this tutorial has given you everything you need to create archive pages for your own blog. If you think I’ve missed anything, please let me know in the comments below.

Get the plugin today and start creating archives of your blog posts or other content types. Whether you need to create a WordPress date archive, author archive, category archive, tag archive, or something else, it only takes a few minutes to set up. The end result will be professional WordPress archive pages that make it much easier for your users to find and engage with your posts.

WooCommerce Subscriptions Product Table

It's well documented that if you want to build a successful e-commerce business, then a recurring revenue model is the way forward. Selling WooCommerce subscription products can be much more profitable than charging for each purchase as a one-off.

After all, your marketing costs are the same whether the customer makes a one-off purchase or a regular subscription. But with an ongoing subscription, that same customer is paying you every week, month or year (depending on your billing schedule and business model) on top of sign-up fees – for no extra customer acquisition or marketing costs.

WooCommerce Subscriptions is the official extension for taking recurring payments in your WooCommerce store. It provides an easy way to create subscription products and sell them on a daily, weekly, monthly or annual basis. It comes with all the subscription management features you'll ever need, such as the option to add a free trial period and one-off sign-up fees on top of the regular subscription payment and subscription renewals. Your customers will be billed automatically for their regular subscription fees using your chosen payment method - whether this is PayPal, Stripe, or another payment gateway. This means you can enable automatic payments.

WooCommerce Subscriptions integrates nicely with our top selling WooCommerce Product Table and Quick View Pro WordPress plugins. Used together, your subscriptions are listed in a searchable, sortable table view with filters and quick view lightboxes

See the two plugins in action on our subscriptions demo site!

I'm going to tell you more about the benefits of using WooCommerce Product Table and Quick View to list subscription products. I'll also explain exactly how the two plugins work together and where to get them.

Product Table Subscriptions Quick View

The downside of WooCommerce Subscriptions

I think that WooCommerce Subscriptions is a fantastic WP plugin. We've used it on lots of our clients' websites and helped them to build recurring revenue for their business. However, it does have one major problem.

The problem: You can only buy subscriptions on the single product page

The Subscriptions recurring payments plugin just lists subscription products or downloadable product in the same layout as any other WC product. The only difference is that the 'Add to Cart' button is replaced with some other text. Customers have to click through to the single product page to see information such as the product description and other useful data. That's fine for some types of subscription, but others will sell better with a different type of layout.

For example, what if you want subscribers to be able to view your subscription products alongside one another and make comparisons? Well, that's not possible with the default layouts because you have to click through to the single product page for full details.

What if you want customers to subscribe without having to visit a separate page for each product?

Solution 1: List WooCommerce subscription products with the WooCommerce Product Table plugin

WooCommerce Product Table lists each subscription product on a separate row in the table layout. Subscribers can easily view the subscription pricing, make comparisons, and add to the cart without having to click elsewhere. Every time you add a new subscription or new product, it'll automatically appear in the product table.

It's an ideal way to increase the recurring revenue from your online store.

WooCommerce Product Table has over 50 options for choosing how to list your subscription products. Here are some of the most important ones to use with WooCommerce Subscriptions:

  • Display add to cart buttons directly in the subscription product list. Customers can choose a quantity and buy directly from the product table view.
  • You can choose your columns to show extra data about each subscription directly in the table. This means that customers can choose a subscription without having to click elsewhere.
  • Add filter dropdown lists above the table or filter widgets in the sidebar. This lets customers quickly find a subscription product based on category, tag, attribute, and other data.

Solution 2: Sell subscriptions in a WooCommerce Quick View lightbox

WooCommerce quick view product table subscriptions

 

Alternatively, you can sell subscriptions outside of the single product page by adding the WooCommerce Quick View Pro plugin. This adds quick view buttons for each product. Customers can use these to view extra information in a lightbox window. They use the lightbox to choose variations and add subscriptions to the cart, without having to visit a separate page.

Can I use solutions 1 and 2 together?

Absolutely!

You can use WooCommerce Product Table and Quick View Pro together. Your subscription products will be listed in a table layout, with or without add to cart buttons. The tables can also contain quick view buttons or links so that customers can also purchase subscriptions from the lightbox. It'll look just like this on the front-end:

WooCommerce-product table quick view services with subscriptions plugin

How to list WooCommerce subscriptions in a product table

WooCommerce Subscriptions and WooCommerce Product Table work together automatically. You don't have to do any extra setup to use them together.

  1. Simply install the WooCommerce Subscriptions plugin and set up your subscription products. This is really easy - just choose 'Simple subscription' from the dropdown in the 'Product data' section when you create a product. You can then choose your subscription amount, frequency and add a free trial period and setup free if required.
Create WooCommerce subscription
  1. Once you've done that, install WooCommerce Product Table and follow the instructions to create your first product table. Make sure you include a 'Price' and 'Add to Cart' column in the product table. This is where the subscription product information and pricing will appear.
The shortcode for your quick order form.
  1. Now view the product table page. You'll see the subscription information listed in the 'Price' column. The plugin has replaced the text in the add to cart button with the wording that you can configure on the WooCommerce Subscription plugin settings page. When a customer adds a subscription product to the cart, the recurring payment (made through PayPal, Stripe, credit card, or a different payment gateway) will be correctly passed through. The subscription information will appear in the cart, checkout and in order confirmation email notifications. Perfect!

How to use WooCommerce Subscriptions with Quick View Pro

WooCommerce Subscriptions is fully compatible with WooCommerce Quick View Pro. As a result, you can use the two plugins together and let customers buy subscriptions from the quick view lightbox.

The plugins work together with no special configuration. This means that you simply set them both up in the usual way, and the subscription options will automatically appear in the lightbox. Just make sure you enable the Add to Cart buttons on the quick view plugin settings page.

Sell subscriptions to a hidden members area

WooCommerce Subscriptions and WooCommerce Product Table also work nicely with the official WooCommerce Memberships and Groups for WooCommerce plugins.

Both of these WordPress memberships plugins let you restrict access to an exclusive members-only area on your website. They work in slightly different ways, so check out this comparison to help you choose. In a nutshell, both plugins work by creating a WooCommerce product for each type of membership or subscription plan that you wish to sell. For example, if you want to sell access to 3 different areas on your website, then you would create a membership product for each one and list them individually using WooCommerce Product Table. Customers can choose the membership options they require and add them all to the cart, directly from the product table view.

Used without WooCommerce Subscriptions, WooCommerce memberships lets you take one-off payment for access to hidden content on your website. You can use it with the Subscriptions plugin to get ongoing revenue from your membership site, e.g. to take recurring annual subscription payments. This is obviously a better business model than one-off access!

Variable subscriptions

WooCommerce Product Table works perfectly with standard subscription products. It does not integrate with variable subscription products.

If you'd like to offer different options for your WooCommerce subscription products, then there are two simple workarounds:

Workaround #1 - Use WooCommerce Quick View Pro

WooCommerce Product Table Quick View Magnifying Glass
If you're selling variable subscriptions, then you can list these successfully in a product table without an add to cart column. Instead, install the WooCommerce Quick View Pro plugin and add a quick_view column to the product table.

Customers can click on the button to select variations and buy variable subscriptions from the quick view lightbox. This makes the subscribing process incredibly easy.

Workaround #2 - Use All Products for WooCommerce Subscriptions

Alternatively, you can use the All Products for WooCommerce Subscriptions plugin to sell variations for your simple subscriptions. This allows you to sell variations directly in the add to cart column of the product table, without the problems that you get with variable subscriptions:

  • Set up the product as a 'Variable product', NOT a 'Variable subscription'. Add your attributes and variations in the usual way.
  • Install the All Products for WooCommerce Subscriptions add-on for WooCommerce Subscriptions. This handy plugin lets you add subscriptions options to normal variable products, instead of having to use the 'Variable subscriptions' product type.
  • Click the 'Subscriptions' tab near the bottom of the Product Data section. Set up your subscription options as required.
Subscribe All The Things WooCommerce

Your variable simple subscription product will appear in the product table. If you just offer one subscription option then this will automatically be passed to the cart when the customer selects a variation. If you offer a choice of subscription options (e.g. weekly and monthly subscriptions) then these will appear as radio buttons when the customer chooses a variation:

WooCommerce variable subscription

You can also see the workaround in option in the second table on our subscriptions demo page.

Where to get the subscription plugins

As you can see, WooCommerce Product Table is the perfect way to display your subscription products. Customers can quickly look through the list of subscription options and add their subscriptions straight to the cart. No need to visit the single product page!

You can get the plugins by clicking on these links:

Product Table Subscriptions Quick View

Printable WooCommerce order form plugin

Our WooCommerce Product Table plugin is one of the most popular order form plugins out there. Since the publication of our tutorial on how to create a WooCommerce order form, lots of people have asked us how to create a printable WooCommerce order form that their customers can fill in offline.

I was surprised when I first heard that people wanted to use the plugin in this way. After all, most WooCommerce websites take orders online! However, I fully understand that everyone uses WooCommerce differently. There are many valid reasons why you might want to list products on your website, while letting customers print the order form and fill it in with good old fashioned pen and paper. They can send it to you by post, fax - however they like.

The good news is that WooCommerce Product Table functions equally as an offline order form for printing. Keep reading to learn how to set it up in this way.

How a printable order form works in WooCommerce

With a printable order form, you set up a WordPress website and install WooCommerce as usual. Add all your products in WooCommerce.

If you're only planning to take orders offline, then you don't need to set up any shipping options, tax settings or payment gateways. You simply add the products and prices.

The WooCommerce Product Table plugin takes your products and displays them in a beautiful order form layout. Each product appears in a table view, with 1 product per row - just like a traditional order form. You can choose what data to include in the order form, such as the product image, name, short description, price, weight, dimensions, etc. You can also use custom fields and taxonomies to display extra data in the printable order form.

Customers view the order form on your website, and click a button to print it. This prints the entire web page, including all the products in the table and any other fields you've added to the page such as their name, address and payment details. Next, they simply fill in the order form on paper, and send it to you. You receive the printed order form and process is manually.

Keep reading to learn how to create a WooCommerce printable order form for your own website.

WooCommerce offline order form plugin

1. Set up WooCommerce Product Table

To create a printable WooCommerce order form, first get WooCommerce Product Table and set it up by following the instructions in our main order form tutorial. There are lots of ways to set up your order form. For example, you can choose your columns and whether to show all your products or just some of them (e.g. based on category).

When you've set up the basic order form, come back and use the following steps to convert it into an offline order form for printing.

2. Replace the add to cart buttons with checkboxes

By default, the WooCommerce order form plugin comes with an add to cart button next to each product in the table. That's fine for online ordering, but doesn't work if you're using the order form offline.

Instead, go to the plugin settings page (WooCommerce > Settings > Products > Product tables) and choose the 'Checkbox' box option for the add to cart buttons.

This will change the add to cart buttons to checkboxes. Each button will have a small tick box next to it. After printing the WooCommerce offline order form, customers can write a tick in the box for each product they wish to order.

3. Add a quantity field to the offline order form

WooCommerce Product Table comes with a quantity field that you can include in the printed order form. However, this isn't ideal because it has up/down arrows (which obviously don't function offline) and has a '1' in the box by default.

Here are some suggestions on how to add a quantity field to the WooCommerce offline order form:

  1. You could write some CSS to hide the up/down arrows and remove the default quantity from the box.
  2. Alternatively, you could use the WooCommerce Product Options plugin to add a text field next to the add to cart checkbox for each product. This plugin is fully integrated with WooCommerce Product Table and will automatically appear in the add to cart column. Label this field 'Quantity' and customers will write the required quantity in the box. (Tip: If you want to make the quantity box smaller, use the 'widths' option to reduce the size of the add to cart column.)
WooCommerce order form quantity field plugin

4. Hide the 'Add Selected to Cart' buttons

This is the only part of the tutorial that's slightly technical. If you're using add to cart checkboxes, then an 'Add Selected to Cart' button will appear above the table. This is ideal for online ordering, but isn't needed for a printable offline order form.

If you don't want the 'Add Selected to Cart' button, then you can hide it by adding some custom CSS to the Customizer. To get you started, here's a link to the CSS selectors in the WooCommerce Product Table developer documentation. This is a developer task and if you don't know how to do this, then we recommend posting a job on Codeable. Codeable is perfect for finding suitable people for small customizations like this.

5. Show all your products as a one-page order form

By default, the WooCommerce order form plugin shows up to 25 products per page. If you have more than 25 products, then pagination links will appear at the bottom. Customers can use these links to see the remaining products.

This arrangement doesn't make sense for a printed WooCommerce order form, because only the visible products will appear in the print-out. Instead, go back to the plugin settings page (WooCommerce > Settings > Products > Product tables). Change the 'rows per page' option to ensure that all your products are shown on a single screen.

6. Hide the order form controls

WooCommerce Product Table adds various controls above and below the WooCommerce order form. Above the product list, you'll see a search box and a dropdown where customers can choose the number of products per page. Below, the order form, you'll see pagination buttons and the total number of products. None of this makes sense for an offline order form!

Use the plugin settings page to set each of these options to 'false'. Your printable WooCommerce order form should contain the column headers and the list of products, but nothing else.

For the same reason, make sure your page is full-width - your theme probably has a template for this. There's no need to clutter up your printed order form with extras such as filter widgets that don't work offline.

7. Add empty columns to the order form

Do you need a blank column for writing notes about each product? To do this, add a blank column to your product table which customers can fill in when they print it out.

To do this, simply add cf:notes to your list of columns. This tells WooCommerce Product Table to display a custom field called 'notes' - but since this custom field doesn't exist, the column will remain blank. Simple!

If you don't want to call the column 'Notes' then replace 'notes' with anything you like - so long as it doesn't exist, then it will appear as a blank column.

8. Add other fields to the printable WooCommerce order form

Order forms in traditional printed catalogs have fields for the customer to write their name, address and payment details. You can easily add these fields above or below the product table on your printable order form. Simply install any WordPress contact form plugin (e.g. Contact Form 7), create a form with the required fields, and add it to the order form page.

Remember to remove the Submit button, since people won't be submitting the form online.

9. Make the order form printable

People can easily print the order form by using the 'Print' option that comes with their browser. However, you can help your less technically savvy customers by adding a user-friendly 'Print' button to the printable order form page.

You can easily do this by installing the free Print, PDF, Email by PrintFriendly plugin. This simple plugin adds customizable buttons to your order form, which let your customers click to print the page in a print-friendly layout.

Further reading: Print Your WooCommerce Product Tables & Save as PDF

10. Make it user-friendly

You can use your printable WooCommerce order form as a multi-functional form where people can order online, or print it and post it to you. If you're just using it as an offline order form, then it's worth making sure this is clear to your users.

When people see your products listed online, it needs to be clear to them that you only accept orders offline. You can easily achieve this by adding a notice to the top of the page. This should instruct customers to print the order form page, with details of how they can submit the order (e.g. by posting it to you).

WooCommerce Quick View Pro Without Add to Cart Button

The aim of a printable order form is to keep everything on one page. You don't want customers to click through to a separate page to learn more about each product. That's important because this would lose the selections they had already made on the order form - a guaranteed way to frustrate the customer.

But what happens if you want to provide extra information that isn't part of the printable order form?

The solution is to install our other plugin, WooCommerce Quick View Pro. This lets you add quick view links to your products. Customers can click on these to see extra images and information about the product in a lightbox window. When they close the lightbox, they remain on the printable order form page, so they won't lose their selections or have to start again.

How to add WooCommerce quick view

  1. Install and active the WooCommerce Quick View Pro WordPress plugin.
  2. Go to the plugin settings page: WooCommerce → Settings → Products → Quick view.
  3. WooCommerce Quick View Plugin Settings Page
    Add your license key and choose what you want to show in the quick view window. If you're adding quick view to a printable WooCommerce order form, then I recommend showing information such as the product image gallery and short description. That's the sort of thing that customers want to see before ticking a product and sending their order. However, you probably don't want to include add to cart buttons because it's an offline order form and you're not using the e-commerce features.
  4. Now to go the WooCommerce Product Table settings page: WooCommerce → Settings → Products → Product table.
  5. Scroll to the bottom to find the WooCommerce Quick View options. Tick the option to replace all links to the single product page with quick view. That's more suitable for a printable order form than adding actual quick view buttons. After all, you don't want quick view buttons to show on the printed order form! By just linking the product name and/or image to the quick view, these won't show on the printed order form.
WooCommerce Quick View Pro Product Table Settings

Where to get the plugin

As you can see, WooCommerce Product Table is ideal for creating a printable WooCommerce order form to be used offline. Customers can see the products listed on your website and print the page. They can then tick the products they require and write the required quantity for each one. Finally, they can fill in their details, and post the order to you.

This is a brilliant way of taking manual orders with WooCommerce. I'd love to add some example use cases and case studies of how people are using WooCommerce to provide offline order forms. Please get in touch or add a comment below.

A good WordPress table of contents plugin can do a lot for your website, and in ways that are probably a bit outside of what you might be expecting.

This sounds perhaps a bit mysterious at this point, but I'm going to explain everything in just a minute.

In short, if you've been on the lookout for a great WordPress table of contents plugin then your search is basically over. In this post, I'm going to show you why Posts Table Pro is the ultimate such plugin, how to use it, and in which unusual ways it can help you make your whole site more reader-friendly.

Posts Table Pro: the best table of contents plugin

Posts Table Pro lets you create an easy table of contents for your entire website. And "entire" is the keyword here.

An example of what that might look like:

WordPress Table of Contents Plugin
  • What you can see in this particular example is a list of posts belonging to a given category. This can be customized (more on this in a minute).

So what sets this plugin apart from its competitors?

Most WordPress TOC plugins focus on creating a set of jump links within an individual blog post.

Posts Table Pro does something else.

In simple terms, it hooks up to your site's database and allows you to build a whole site table of contents. This can consist of any number and any combination of WordPress posts, pages, custom post types, taxonomies, custom fields or any other content type you might have on the site.

But there's more:

  • Posts Table Pro is a user-friendly and simple TOC plugin that works through easy shortcodes, which means that you can include your table of contents in any post or page.
  • The structure of your table of contents is fully customizable, and the overall styling is inherited from your current theme. No CSS code snippets required.
  • You can present your table of contents as a single-column list, or as a multi-column table that's sortable, paginated (to prevent scrolling), and offering you a number of side features.
  • You can add a search field to help the reader find any given entry in the TOC.
  • The reader can filter through the website table of contents via a handy dropdown list.
  • Everything is fully responsive and mobile-friendly.
  • It can improve your website's SEO in search engines like Google.
  • Posts Table Pro is compatible with WordPress themes as well as page builders like Elementor.

Here's how to use Posts Table Pro step by step:

How to start using this WordPress table of contents plugin

There are just two simple steps:

Step #1: Install Posts Table Pro

First, here's where you can get the plugin:

After you finalize the purchase, you will be able to download the ZIP containing the plugin. You will also get your personal license key.

Next:

  • Log in to your WordPress dashboard, and go to Plugins → Add New.
  • Click on the Upload Plugin button at the top of the page.
  • Select the ZIP file of the plugin and follow the on-screen instructions to install and activate the plugin.
  • Afterward, the setup wizard for Posts Table Pro will launch on its own and guide you to create your first table.

Step #2 Customizing your table of content

If you're looking to create a minimal table of contents for your document or project, you've come to the right place. A table of contents can be a helpful tool to guide your readers through the content and structure of your work. However, sometimes a simple and minimal approach is preferred. To create a minimalist table of contents, follow the steps below.

  1. You can create a table of contents in the setup wizard when you first activate the plugin, or by going to Posts Tables → Add New.
  2. Next, you need to provide a name and select the post type to display (in this case, "posts"). It's important to point out that Posts Table Pro also allows you to display a table of contents for your custom posts, whatever those might be. For example, let's say you have created a custom post type called "books". You can display a table of contents featuring all posts of that type by selecting the custom post type "books". Or if you want to make a table of content for a series of posts, add the custom post type 'series name'.
  3. Select which posts or pages to add to your table.
  4. Add columns such as the title.
  5. You can add filters to the table for users to easily find what they're looking for, such as article categories and titles.
    content filtering
  6. Set the default sorting option and the sort direction.
  7. If you have a lot of data, you can enable lazy loading to improve the table's performance.
  8. Then choose how to sort your table, setting the default sorting option and the sort direction that you prefer.

With Posts Table Pro, you can choose specific posts, pages, custom content types, and even WooCommerce products that you want to feature in your table of contents. This helps you deliver a better user experience.

Displaying a table of contents for custom posts

Once you've successfully created your table with the Post Table Pro plugin, the setup wizard will let you know that you've completed the process and give you clear instructions on how to insert the table onto your WordPress site. The plugin offers several options for adding the table to your site, depending on your preference.

You can choose to use the "Post Table" block in the Gutenberg editor to directly add the table to your page. Alternatively, you can copy the shortcode from the table builder and paste it onto any page on your site. This gives you the freedom to place the table wherever you want, regardless of the content on the page.

5. Creating an index of your website content

An index is kind of like a table of contents, only a much bigger one, and lists your articles in alphabetical order.

An example:

WordPress index plugin example

You can create something like that with Posts Table Pro as well. Here's how.

6. Listing ALL your website content in a single TOC

Granted, taking all your content and listing it inside a single table of contents is a bit extreme. However, it can be useful. Two scenarios:

  • Instead of creating a sitemap by hand (through HTML), you can generate it automatically with Posts Table Pro. Plus it's going to be searchable and much easier to navigate than a standard sitemap would be.
  • You can take this "mega TOC" and put it on a page published privately (meaning that only the logged-in users can see it). This can be a useful resource for your internal editorial team. That's because using such a TOC to find specific pieces of content on the site is going to be much quicker than going to the WordPress dashboard.

Just remember to choose the custom post types in refine tab of the table builder. You can always choose more than two post types.

Where to get the plugin

To learn all the ins and outs of the WordPress plugin and master structuring your shortcode to get the exact effect you desire, check out Posts Table Pro's official reference file here.

 

This sums up how to use Posts Table Pro - the best WordPress table of contents plugin out there for bloggers. If you have any questions at all, feel free to submit them below.