Table of content
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I install PrestaShop?
See the "Getting Started" guide.
Which are the data from my shop that the PrestaShop company has access to?
Here is the answer in English and in French.
What are the PrestaShop license restrictions, if any?
PrestaShop is released under the Open Software License (OSL) v. 3.0. Its modules are released under the Academic Free License 3.0.
How can I modify the default theme or build a new theme?
See the Designer Guide.
How do I import product data from another application?
See the documentation on the Import tool.
How do I allow my server to generate friendly URLs?
In previous version of PrestaShop, you had to manually generate a new .htaccess
file after having enabled friendly URLs. This is no longer the case since version 1.5: the .htaccess
file is now silently managed by PrestaShop, and you do not have to worry about it.
See the documentation on the "SEO & URLs" preferences page.
How do I translate PrestaShop into my language?
This is done in the "Translations" page of the "Localization" menu.
See the documentation on the "Localization" menu.
How do I obtain process payment modules to be used with PrestaShop?
You can obtain all payments modules on PrestaShop's Add-Ons site.
Many payments modules for several banks and payments process are available. You will be able to accept credit card payments and payments in several times.
How do I add or change a currency?
This is done in the "Currency" page of the "Localization" menu.
See the documentation on the "Localization" menu.
How do I add an advertisement script to my PrestaShop online store?
Use the Google AdSense module.
Note that the Google AdSense module can be used to display ad code from any ad service, not just the ones from Google AdSense.
How do I activate the GD Library?
Here is the standard Windows instructions are:
- In the root directory of your PHP folder, open the
php.ini
file. - Uncomment the
extension=php_gd2.dll
line (about half-way through the file, in the middle of a long list of extensions) by deleting the;
at the start of the line. - Restart the PHP services.
If you cannot edit the server settings, contact your host.
How do I use PayPal with PrestaShop?
Go to the "Modules" page, and install the Paypal module. Do not forget to configure it!
See the documentation for the "Modules" menu, mostly the "Installing a payment module" section.
How do I select which featured products are displayed on the homepage?
You need to associate the product to the homepage category. For each product you want displayed on the front-page, open the "Association" tab and select the "Home" category, in addition to the already-checked category.
See the documentation for the "Associations" tab of the "Catalog" page.
How do I add and modify taxes in PrestaShop?
Go to the "Taxes" and "Tax rules" pages of the "Localization" menu.
See the documentation for the "Localization" menu.
How do I upgrade to a new version of PrestaShop?
See the page on updating your version of PrestaShop.
How do modules work in PrestaShop?
See the "Making the native modules work" chapter of the documentation, for the "Modules" page.
How do I set up an RSS feed to show my links (e.g., to my blog) on the Front Office?
Install the "RSS products feed" module, from the "Modules" page.
How do RMAs (Return Merchandise Authorizations) work in PrestaShop?
Everything happens in the "Merchandise returns" of the "Orders" menu.
See the documentation for the "Orders" menu.
How do I edit text for "About us", "Delivery", "Legal notice" and "Conditions"?
In the back-office, navigate to "Preferences" > "CMS", and select the pages you want to edit.
How do I change the default images and texts on the homepage?
The default theme for PrestaShop features an image slider. You can edit that slider by configuring the "Image slider for your homepage" module, which can be found in the "Modules" page of the back-office.
The default theme also features a block containing featured products. The products displayed are the ones which are associated with the home-page along with their default category (see the question above). This slider is managed using the "Featured Products on the homepage" module, which can be found in the "Modules" page of the back-office. You can remove the slider from the homepage by uninstalling the module, or you can set the number of products to be displayed by configuring the module (click the "Configure" button for the module in the "Modules" page).
Some themes feature a default text on the homepage. This text is often managed by the "Home text editor" module, which can be found in the "Modules" page of the back-office. You can remove the text from the homepage by uninstalling the module, or you can set the content of the text (including its static image) by configuring the module (click the "Configure" button for the module in the "Modules" page).
How can I display errors when I get a blank page?
Those blank pages are a HTTP 500 error. You can see that more properly by viewing the shop in the Chrome browser. Read more about it here:
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_HTTP_status_codes#5xx_Server_Error
- http://www.checkupdown.com/status/E500.html
- http://pcsupport.about.com/od/findbyerrormessage/a/500servererror.htm
This is a server error, which means that either the server has an issue, or the website's programming (ie., PrestaShop itself) has had something wrong happen.
HTTP 500 being a very general error, you will need more information in order to pinpoint where the problem is. You can do so by enabling the debug messages. Follow these instructions:
using your FTP client, go to your web server’s FTP, and open the file
defines.inc.php
, which is in the/config
folder. There's a bunch of text, then this appears:/* Debug only */ define('_PS_MODE_DEV_', false); if (_PS_MODE_DEV_)
change that second line: replace "false" with "true" (without quotes). It should now read:
/* Debug only */ define('_PS_MODE_DEV_', true); if (_PS_MODE_DEV_)
The "dev" mode is now enabled, and more detailed error messages should display. Use that to find where the problem lies – it could be a module, a section of the theme, or maybe even PrestaShop itself.
Once you have fixed the issue and error messages do not appear anymore, change the edited line back to "false".
How do I upload an image to a CMS page?
CMS pages are built using a WYSIWYG system, which is based on the popular TinyMCE (http://www.tinymce.com/). When creating or editing a page, the editor presents a series of button, used to format and improve the text.
The "Upload" button is located int the bottom row of the interface:
- Click on the "Insert / Edit image" button. A new window opens.
- Click on the icon on the right of the "Image URL" field. Another window opens.
- Click on the "Upload" link at the top right of that window. The window darkens and you can click on the "Browse" button to find your image.
- Select your image on your computer, then click the "Upload" button. The upload indicator stops circling when the image is on your server. Click the "Close" link to get back to the previous window.
- Select your image in the folder but checking the box (you can view a thumbnail by clicking the icon next to the checkbox), then click the "Select" button. you are taken back to the first window, where you can see your image in full size in the first tab, and choose more options on the other two tabs. Click the "Insert" button to put your image in the CMS page and close that window.
- Finally, you can see your CMS page with your image clearly visible. If the image is too back, you can resize it using the border handles, or you can widen the text field. You can move the image at will.
How to display a different price for professionals?
In many countries, professionals are used to see prices displayed without the tax (even if the tax is indeed included in the final invoice).
This is not set up by default, but you you can easily put that in place for some select users. Regular users will still see the prices including taxes.
- Go to the "Groups" page of the "Customers" menu.
- Create a new group named "Professionals" (or any other fitting name).
- In the group-creation page, change the "Price display method" method option to use "Tax excluded". Save the group.
Now go to the "Customers" page, and for each professional customer:
- Open the customer edition page.
- In the "Group access" section, uncheck the regular "Client" group and check the new "Professionals" group
- In the "Default customer group", select the "Professionals" group.
This way, the clients marked as professionals will see prices without taxes as soon as they connect to their account. Visitors, guest and regular clients will still see tax-included prices.
How I can customize the maintenance page?
The maintenance page is actually a regular template file, located in your theme's folder.
You should therefore be able to find it in the name of maintenance.tpl
, in the /themes/your_theme
folder.
Open the maintenance.tpl
file with a text editor, and edit at will. Be careful not to break the Smarty tags (marked {tag}
or {/tag}
) ; make sure to keep a backup in the folder, for instance under the name maintenance-originalFile.tpl
.
How to modify a page's display?
You have to add your own selectors in your theme's CSS file. This file is usually found in /themes/YOUR_THEME/css/global.css
.
Once created, you can use your selectors in the .tpl
page you want to modify.
How to create your own page/template?
You can also create your own .tpl
file (located in your theme directory), in which you can insert your own HTML tags, and create a .php
page (at the root of your shop) which will call the .tpl
file.
Here is an example:
First, your_page.php
:
<?php include(dirname(__FILE__).'/config/config.inc.php'); include(dirname(__FILE__).'/header.php'); $smarty->display(_PS_THEME_DIR_.'your_page.tpl'); include(dirname(__FILE__).'/footer.php'); ?>
In this example, the your_page.tpl
file contains your HTML code (which can use Smarty calls).
How to correctly import accentuated content using a CSV file?
If you make a CSV import with accentuated texts, be sure that the .csv
file has been saved eith with the UTF-8 or iso-8859-1 encoding. If it is using iso-8859-1, make sure to indicate that in the "Import" page of the "Advanced parameters" menu. PrestaShop's default encoding is UTF-8.
If the CSV file does not use any of these encodings, open it in a text-editor (such as Notepad++), and save it using the UTF-8 encoding.
How to change the maximum size of uploaded files to your server?
To change the maximum size of the uploaded files in your server, you have to edit the php.ini
file for your PHP installation. This can only be done if you do have access to your server's PHP configuration files. If not, ask your host.
If you do have access to php.ini
, open it and edit the following lines:
post_max_size = [anything] upload_max_filesize = [anything]
If you want to set the maximum to 200 megabytes, change their values to:
post_max_size = 200M upload_max_filesize = 200M
Finally, restart the server to take your changes into account.
How to add a link or an image to customize the mails sent to your customers?
PrestaShop enables you to automatically send a great variety of mails to your customers (order confirmations, site subscriptions, out of stock notifications, etc.). It might be useful to customize these mails: adding images, links to survey forms or information pages (blogs, news, etc.).
Let's say your company wants to customize the e-mail sent automatically to customers after a purchase, in order to redirect them to a survey form.
To add a link in the mails sent to your English-speaking customers, you have to:
- Go to the
/mails/en
directory from your shop root. - Edit the HTML template relative to the mail you want to modify: for instance,
order_conf.html
is the e-mail sent for new orders. Insert the link to the survey right in the HTML code (static):
<a href="http://www.myshop.com/survey.php">Click here if you want to participate to our survey!</a>
or a dynamic link with your logo:
<a href="{shop_url}" title="{shop_name}"><img alt="{shop_name}" src="{shop_logo}" style="border:none;"></a>
Save the file.
Now the link will be added in every new mail sent after a purchase.
How to create a new translation?
Follow these steps:
- Go to your PrestaShop back-office, in the "Localization" menu, and its "Languages" page.
- Add a new language: click the "Add" button on the top right of the table. Fill in the various fields:
- The name must be clearly labeled: English, French, Danish, Chinese... Make sure to use the correct language name, and write it fully.
- The ISO code must be from the ISO 636-1 list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ISO_639-1_codes. Be very precise: the system will check whether a language pack already exists for that ISO code
- PrestaShop uses FamFamFam's flag set, which you can download here: http://www.famfamfam.com/lab/icons/flags/.
- Don’t forget to activate the language.
- Save your changes.
- In order to help you get started with the translation, you must copy the strings from the another installed language to your own:
- Go to the "Translations" page of the "Localization" menu.
- In the "Copy" section: use the default language along with the default theme in the "From" fields, and your new language along with its theme in the "To" field.
- Then you can start translating:
- Go to the "Modify translations" section at the top of the "Translations" page.
- Choose "Front Office Translations" in the drop-down list, then click on the flag of your new language.
- Start translating the fields.
- Click "Save the modifications" once it all seems correct to you.
- Repeat this step for each type of translation (back-office, modules, etc.).
- Your own language is now totally translated! Test, test, test! Have your friends test it too!
If you want to contribute it to the PrestaShop project, you can propose your new translation to the PrestaShop Team. In the "Export a language" section, select the new language; in the following fields select "prestashop" then click "Export". Save this file and send it to [email protected] with as subject "New translation: XX", with "XX" being the ISO code of the language (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ISO_639-1_codes).
You have contributed to the PrestaShop project! Thank you so much!