How to add custom downloadable files using metafields?

Modified on Mon, 25 Oct 2021 at 08:02 PM

Caution: This is an advanced tutorial and is not supported by Shopify. This tutorial has been verified to work with Debut theme only. You can try to implement this on your theme, but keep in mind that it may not function. Knowledge of technologies such as HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and Shopify Liquid is required. We suggest hiring a Shopify Expert if you are not comfortable proceeding with the following tutorial. 

Once you have completed the steps in this tutorial, the custom downloadable files of your products will appear as a custom block on your products pages: 

Check out this demo product to see the tutorial result in action.


Step 1. Create a new Shopify Liquid snippet called downloadable-files.liquid


  1. From your Shopify admin, go to Online Store > Themes.

  1. Find your current theme (or the theme you want to edit) and then click Actions > Edit code.

  1. On the left side, click the Snippets heading to access your Snippets. Once you get the list of snippets, click the Add a new snippet link.


  1. Name your snippet downloadable-files. Click Create snippet:

  1. Copy and paste the code listed below into your new ‘downloadable-files.liquid’ snippet.

 <div class="downloadable-file-wrapper">
 {%assign custom_files = product.metafields.product-files %}
  {%if custom_files.size > 0 %}  
   <h3>Downloadable links</h3>
     <ul>
       {% for file in custom_files %}
        {% assign file_key = file | first %}
        {% assign file_link = file | last %}
       <li class="downloadable-file-item"><span>{{file_key}}: </span><a href="{{file_link}}" target="_blank"><span class="downloadable-file-value"></span></a> </li>
       {% endfor %}
     </ul>
  {%endif%}
  </div>
 <br/>


Save the file. 

Step 2. Include downloadable-files.liquid in your product-template.liquid

  1. On the left side of the screen (same section we used to find the Snippets), click the Sections heading to access your Sections.

 

  1. Under the Sections heading, locate and click product-template.liquid to open your product template in Shopify built-in online code editor.

  2. Find the perfect spot to place your custom downloadables block within the product page. In this tutorial we’ll place it right under the product description. Find the following block of your product-template.liquid file: 

        

  1. copy and paste the code listed below right under the product description section:

{% render "downloadable-files" %}




  1. Proudly hit Save button:


Step 3. Add CSS styles.

Now you may want to add some CSS rules to make the whole thing look pretty. Go to Assets section and find your theme.scss.liquid file

 Open this file, copy and paste the code listed below and save changes.

// ***************************** Custom downloadable files ****************************************//

.downloadable-file-item {
  clear: both;
  display: block;
  widht:32px;
  height:32px;
}

.downloadable-file-item + .downloadable-file-item{
  margin-top: 30px;
}

.downloadable-file-value {
  display: block;
  widht:32px;
  height:32px;
  background-image: url('https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0328/5057/5497/t/1/assets/pdf2.png'); // URL of the PDF icon displayed at the product page. Feel free to use any other icon.
  background-repeat: no-repeat;
}

// ***************************** Custom downloadable files ****************************************//


Step 4. Populate the metafields.

The custom functionality we implemented earlier is pretty easy to use and maintain. All you need to do to add a new custom downloadable file to your product is to create create a new metafield within the namespace specified in your downloadable-files.liquid file (the default namespace used in this tutorial is “product-files”). The key of the metafield won’t be used in our code, so it can be any valid and unique key. The value of the metafield should contain a valid URL of the file you want to share with your customers. For example, this is what the metafields used to add the custom downloads to our demo product look like “under the hood”:


Was this article helpful?

That’s Great!

Thank you for your feedback

Sorry! We couldn't be helpful

Thank you for your feedback

Let us know how can we improve this article!

Select atleast one of the reasons
CAPTCHA verification is required.

Feedback sent

We appreciate your effort and will try to fix the article