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Quick start: your first decorated product

This takes about ten minutes. Have these ready:

  • A photo of a garment, front view, uploaded or ready to upload to the Media Library. A square image on a plain background works best.
  • One font file (TTF, OTF, WOFF or WOFF2) that your shop holds a webfont license for.
  • Your thread or ink chart as a CSV file, or a few colors you can type into one (format below).
  • A WooCommerce product to decorate, and a test payment method such as Cash on delivery.

Fastest: the setup wizard

Go to StitchPress > Setup wizard (a notice offers it until your shop has a template). Seven short steps, each one a plain form you can leave and come back to:

  1. Method: embroidery or screen printing.
  2. Template and prices: pick a starter layout (tee, cap or tote), the product to decorate and your own prices. A shop with no products yet can let the wizard create a draft product with a plain garment drawing. Saving this step again updates the same template.
  3. Colors: choose a palette or upload your thread or ink chart as a CSV (up to 1 MB).
  4. Font: upload a font you hold a webfont license for, with the license note. Optional.
  5. Look: the designer skin (Default or Workshop, dark) and an optional accent color.
  6. Licence: paste your key, or skip and add it later under StitchPress > Licence.
  7. Test and finish: a checklist of what a customer will hit, a link to the product page for a test order, and the next screens to visit. Finishing is refused until the product actually opens the designer.

Revisiting the wizard after setup shows the finish screen with the same checklist; Run the wizard again from step 1 starts over without deleting what was made.

Shortcut: demo data

If you want to look around before setting anything up, go to StitchPress > Demo data and click Import demo data. It creates a small sample shop:

  • three templates (a cap, a tee and a tote) with plain garment drawings;
  • a palette of eight generic thread colors named "Demo palette, replace with your thread chart" (not a manufacturer's chart);
  • six products and two sample orders from demo-customer@example.com.

The demo installs no fonts and sends no email. Remove demo data deletes what Import created, including the sample orders and images, and nothing else. Demo items you edited are deleted too, except a template, image or palette that your own products, categories, templates or real orders still use: those are kept. Remove the demo data before you uninstall StitchPress. From the command line: wp stitchpress demo import, wp stitchpress demo remove and wp stitchpress demo status.

The steps below build the same thing by hand. The wizard does steps 1 to 6 for one product; the manual steps are the reference for everything after that.

Step 1: choose the decoration method

StitchPress has two methods built in:

  • Embroidery: priced by placement and size, one thread color per text or logo, setup fee per new logo (digitizing).
  • Screen printing: priced by number of ink colors and order quantity, setup fee per screen.

You choose the method per template in step 4. One template can offer both. This guide uses embroidery. The pricing models are explained in Methods and pricing.

Step 2: import a palette

  1. Go to StitchPress > Color palettes.
  2. Under Add a palette, enter a Name (for example "Madeira Polyneon 40"), an optional Brand, and set Decoration method to Embroidery.
  3. Click Create palette.
  4. Under Import colors from CSV, choose your file and click Check file. Nothing is saved yet.
  5. Review the rows and any skipped rows, then click Import N colors.

The smallest valid file looks like this:

order,tier,code,name,hex
1,,1800,Black,#1a1a1a
2,,1801,White,#ffffff
3,,1747,Red,#c8102e

The full format is in Palettes and fonts.

Step 3: upload a font

StitchPress ships no fonts. Text placements use the fonts you upload.

  1. Go to StitchPress > Fonts.
  2. Under Add a font, choose the Font file.
  3. Enter a Display name. Customers and production staff see this name.
  4. Enter a License note, for example where you bought the font and what the license covers.
  5. Tick I confirm this shop holds rights to embed this font as a webfont on its own site. The upload is refused without it.
  6. Click Upload font.

With no font uploaded, customers can still add text, but they get no font choice and the Job Jacket flags every text placement as having no recorded font.

Step 4: create a template

  1. Go to StitchPress > Decoration templates.
  2. Type a New template name (for example "Crew tee") and click Add template. The editor opens.
  3. Under Decoration methods, tick Embroidery.
  4. Under Views, click Add view. Set the key to front and the label to Front. Click Choose image, pick the garment photo and click Use this image.
  5. Under Sizes, click Add size. Set the key to m, the label to Medium (up to 3.5 in) and W in to 3.5.
  6. On the garment image, drag a rectangle where the decoration may go. In the Selected zone panel set Zone key to chest, Zone label (shown to customers) to Left chest, tick m under Allowed sizes, and leave Max items at 1.
  7. Under Palette, choose the palette from step 2.
  8. Under Pricing, for Embroidery: set First placement to 8.00, Each additional to 5.00, and the size multiplier for m to 1. Leave the Setup fee Amount at 0 for now (no setup fee).
  9. Click Save template.

If the save is refused, the message names the problem. The common ones: an enabled method has no pricing, a size has no multiplier, or a zone allows no size.

Step 5: assign the template to the product

  1. Go to Products and edit your product.
  2. In Product data, on the General tab, set Decoration template to "Crew tee".
  3. Click Update.

To use one template for a whole category or for every product, see Assigning templates.

Step 6: place a test order

  1. Open the product page on your store. Because the template offers visual placement (both capture modes are on for a new template), the designer is drawn as a card inside the add-to-cart form. With quick capture only, a Design yours button opens it in a popup instead.
  2. Choose Left chest, type some text, pick a thread color, and add the design to the cart.
  3. In the cart, check the design rows and the Decoration price row.
  4. Check out with your test payment method.
  5. In the admin, go to WooCommerce > Orders and open the order. The Job Jacket box shows the production sheet. Click Print Job Jacket to see the print view.

If the designer does not appear on the product page, see Designer does not appear.

Source: the plugin's docs/site/quick-start.md, rendered for StitchPress 1.0.0-rc4. Found an error? Tell support.