Adding tabs to your product pages is not difficult--all you have to do is copy and paste a little code here and there. There are two different ways of adding tabs, depending on how you want them to function, so continue reading about the two methods below.
Wait! Are you using the Minimal theme?
I have another post about how to add tabs in the Minimal theme. Click here for that tutorial.
Adding tabs where 2 out of 3 tabs are the same for all products
Some store owners want to have tabs that are the same for all products, except for one tab which contains the product description. For example, you might have:
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One tab for the product description (which varies for each product)
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A second tab for shipping policies (which are the same for all products)
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A third tab for return policies (which are the same for all products
If this is what you want, there is a handy article in the Shopify Wiki explaining how to do this, which you can access here.
Adding tabs that are all unique for each product
In my experience, more store owners prefer to have tabs that are completely unique for each product. For example, on a single product page you might have:
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One tab for the product description
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One tab for the product's ingredients, or instructions for how to use it, etc.
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One tab for a video about the product
In the next few paragraphs I'll walk you through the simple steps for adding these tabs. You can also watch the video walkthrough directly below.
1. Create a duplicate of your Shopify theme as a backup
Just in case you mess something up and break your store layout, it's always a good idea to create a backup of your theme before changing the code. You can do this by going to your Shopify Dashboard > Themes, and then clicking "Duplicate" under the theme you are editing.
2. Check to see if your theme already has jQuery and jQuery UI
In order for these tabs to work, your theme will need to have both jQuery and jQuery UI. Most Shopify themes already have jQuery, and many already have jQuery UI, but make sure to check first. You can find out by opening "theme.liquid." This file can be found by going to your Shopify Dashboard, then clicking on Themes > Template Editor. If you have trouble finding this, watch the video tutorial above.
Inside theme.liquid, look for the head tag. It will look like this, but with a bunch of other code in the middle:
<head>
</head>
The first tag marks the beginning of the head, and the second marks the closing of the head. In between these two tags, look for a line of code that looks something like this:
{{ '//ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.4/jquery.min.js' | script_tag }}
OR
<script src="http://code.jquery.com/jquery-1.9.1.js"></script>
It will look one of those two lines above, but the numbers (1.4 or 1.9.1) don't have to match exactly. This is the code for jQuery.
Next, look for the jQuery UI code, which looks something like this:
{{ 'jquery-ui-1.8.6.js' | asset_url | script_tag }}
If you find that your theme already has both jQuery and jQuery UI, proceed to step 3. If you see jQuery but not jQuery UI, then copy only the jQuery UI line below. If you don't see either of these already in your theme, then copy and paste both of the following 2 lines of code right before the </head> tag:
Code you'll need to add jQuery and jQuery UI
<script src="http://code.jquery.com/jquery-1.9.1.js"></script>
<script src="http://code.jquery.com/ui/1.10.3/jquery-ui.js"></script>
3. Add a bit more code
Regardless of what you did in step 2, you should now add the following code directly before the </head> tag: <link rel="stylesheet" href="http://code.jquery.com/ui/1.10.3/themes/smoothness/jquery-ui.css" />
<script> $(function() { $( "#tabs" ).tabs(); }); </script>
4. Add this code to the individual product
Note that you are NOT adding this code to product.liquid, as that would put the same tabs on every single product in your store. Instead, open one of your existing products in your Shopify Dashboard, click the HTML editor button, and then copy and paste this code:
<div id="tabs">
<ul>
<li><a href="#tabs-1">Tab 1 title</a></li>
<li><a href="#tabs-2">Tab 2 title</a></li>
<li><a href="#tabs-3">Tab 3 title</a></li>
</ul>
<div id="tabs-1">
<p>Insert tab 1 content</p>
</div>
<div id="tabs-2">
<p>Insert tab 2 content</p>
</div>
<div id="tabs-3">
<p>Insert tab 3 content</p>
</div>
</div>
Click "Update" or "Save" to save the changes you made to the product. Then go ahead and view the product on your website to make sure the tabs are showing up properly.
5. Edit the content of each tab to your heart's content After confirming that the tabs are working, continue using the HTML editor to change the tab titles and content.
Note: You may try to edit the tab content in the visual editor (rather than the HTML editor), but this tends to cause problems, since Shopify sometimes adds unwanted code that breaks the tabs. If you do this and your tabs stop working, you'll have to check the HTML editor and delete any unwanted code. You might have to come back here and copy and paste the code again.
I hope that went smoothly for you! If you had any problems, please leave a comment below with a description of the problem and I'll do my best to help.
UPDATE: How to change the appearance of these tabs using CSS
In the comments of this post, Melanie asked about how to change the appearance of these tabs to fit better with her Shopify theme. I made this video walking through some basic CSS styling--it's a bit long (22 minutes), but I think it will really help answer Melanie's question. As always, feel free to leave comments below with any other questions!
Having trouble getting this to work?
I'm happy to take a look and try to help you get this working, but please note that I can't help you unless you provide a link to your product page so I can see what you've done so far.
70 comments
Hi Gwen,
It looks like you are using the Minimal theme for Roundeworld.com. You can follow the instructions on this new post to add tabs: http://ecommercepulse.com/2014/01/09/add-tabs-product-pages-shopify-minimal-theme/.
Hi James,
Some themes may use older versions of jQuery, and in that case you may have to add the newer version or replace the old one with the new one.
However, since you are using the Minimal theme, there’s an easy solution for you. I just published a new post addressing how to add tabs in the Minimal theme, so you can find that here: http://ecommercepulse.com/2014/01/09/add-tabs-product-pages-shopify-minimal-theme/.
Hi,
Thanks for your reply. I managed to fix the problem. :) Actually I wanted to have the tabs taking effect for all the product page by editing the template html instead of manually editing the html for each product with the tutorial given in the previous reply. Too tedious.
Btw, do you have a tutorial for the tabs that expand & collapse? Below is a screenshot.
http://monosnap.com/image/1SHLGSCvpwz4nUKaPMutevOsL.png
Thanks!
Hello again! First off, thank you again for all of your great instructions.
I followed your new instructions and it works perfectly!
The zoom feature works and the tabs show up. – Success (thanks to you).
Now… when I check my website using my mobile phone ( I am using the mobile theme “React”….not the minimal mobile version)…
…The tabs do not show up on my phone (iphone). So…I’m currently playing around with things and found out that the old method you gave instructions for DOES work on both mobile version and desktop version (but of course zoom feature does not work).
so…that all being said. It would be great if I can get everything to work correctly…
1. zoom feature on desktop version
2. tabs on desktop version (minimal theme) and…
3. tabs on mobile version (React theme).
Being that your new method, the zoom works, the desktop version tabs work, but the mobile version (react) tabs do not work….
I was thinking…
Is there a javascript code or something I should add to my theme.liquid in the React mobile theme? Is this the issue? Why are the tabs not working in the mobile theme?
THANK YOU!!!!! I really appreciate it!
Hey James,
The simplest solution would be to use a responsive theme that you’re happy with both the desktop view and the mobile view (and only install one set of tab code).
If you really want to use the React theme for mobile and the Minimal theme for desktop, you would need to find the code in Minimal that creates the tabs and copy it over to React. This could be a complicated issue, so you may need to hire a Shopify Expert to help with it.
If I were you, I’d just stick with one theme for now, as that’s going to be simplest and cheapest. Of course that’s up to you. :)