Size & option guides

With LanternWP Companion, a product page can show a link beside one of its options, such as Size guide beside Size. The link opens a guide over the page: how to measure, a drawing if you add one, and a table with the option's values across the top and a row per measurement. A guide can stand beside any option your products vary by: sizes of clothes or shoes, ring sizes, bike frame sizes, bed sizes.

Shoppers can switch the table between centimeters and inches. It opens in your store's unit of dimensions (WooCommerce → Settings → Products), and the browser remembers their choice.

Start a guide

1. Go to Products → Size & option guides.
2. With no guide yet, the page shows templates: T-shirts & tops, Pants, Shoes, Rings, Bike frames, Beds & mattresses and Blank guide. Select the one closest to what you sell, or Blank guide. Later guides start from Add guide.
3. Give the guide a title, such as "Women's tops".

A template fills in the rows with common measurements. The columns are always your own option's values, so a value the template has and your store does not is left out. Check every number against your own products.

Fill in the guide

Under Guide:

1. In Show beside, choose the option the guide is for, such as Size. Its values become the table's columns.
2. In Link text, write what shoppers click: "Size guide" for sizes, or what the guide answers for anything else, such as "Which frame size?".
3. Under Unit, choose Centimeters (cm) or Inches (in) for the measurements you write, or No unit for a table without dimensions.
4. Write How to measure in a sentence or two.
5. To show where to measure, select Add a drawing and choose an image from the media library.

Under Measurements:

1. The columns come from the option's values in Products → Attributes, in their order there, and only those the products in the guide's categories use. To add, rename or reorder a column, change the value there.
2. Write each row's label, such as "Chest", and a number or a range in each cell, such as 84–88.
3. A row can have its own unit: choose cm, in or No unit in its unit field. Use No unit for a row the switch should not change, such as a US shoe size.
4. Select Add row for another measurement. Move a row with its arrows or drag it by its grip; remove it with its cross.

Preview shows the guide as shoppers will see it.

Paste a table from a spreadsheet

1. In Excel, Numbers, Google Sheets or a PDF, copy the table with its first row (the values, such as XS, S, M) and its first column (what is measured).
2. Under Measurements, select Paste from a spreadsheet and paste.
3. Check How it matched: each pasted column shows the value it goes under. A column whose name is not one of the option's values is skipped.
4. Select Replace the rows or Add to the rows. Nothing changes until you do.

Choose the products

1. Under Product categories, check the categories whose products show the guide. Their subcategories use it too, unless a subcategory has a guide of its own.
2. Select Publish.

Used by counts the products that show the guide and lists them, with whether each takes it from its category or chose it itself. The guide's link stands beside an option the shopper chooses, so a product that is not varied by the guide's option (a simple product, or one whose variations differ only in other options) never shows it: the list says "Won’t show: not varied by Size" beside it.

A category another guide chose says so under its name: "Uses …", or, once you check it, "Already uses …, which comes first", since a category's products show one guide. The first is the one first in the guides' order, then by title.

Turn guides off

1. Go to Appearance → LanternWP → Features.
2. In the Size & option guides row, turn the switch off and select Save.

Turned off, no guide shows: Companion places its Size & Option Guide block nowhere, and a block saved in a template shows nothing in the store. Your guides stay in Products → Size & option guides. Turn the switch on again to bring them back.

In the Site Editor, Companion's Size & Option Guide block stands in WooCommerce's Variable Product Add to Cart + Options template parts (Appearance → Editor → Patterns). There it shows a sample, so you can see where it stands and move it like any block. The sample is the link Size guide, after each option's name; in the store it shows only beside the option its guide is for. If you deleted the block from the part, the row says Removed from templates, and Restore in templates puts it back after you confirm.

Give one product another guide

A product shows the guide of its category, or of the nearest parent category that has one. One product shows one guide.

1. Go to Products and edit the product.
2. Under Product data, open Size & option guide.
3. Choose The category’s guide, Another guide (and the guide in the list), or None to show no link, and select Update.

The link shows beside the option the guide is for, and only on products that have that option. A product without a guide shows no link.

A demo import adds the demo's guides with their categories.