Product brochure
Reached from: Brochure on the catalogue · Permission: View Products
1. What the brochure generator is
A PDF renderer that turns the catalogue into a document — three of them, in fact, for three different readers.
2. The three outputs
| Output | For | Shape |
|---|---|---|
| Customer brochure (default) | Customers | Premium, branded, menu-style, grouped by category. The on-screen description says it is "ready to share with customers on WhatsApp" |
| Reconciliation worksheet | Internal | A plain table for checking the catalogue |
| Rate Card | Sales | A crisp three-column price index |
Selecting one rewrites the description beneath, so the dialog always states what you are about to generate.
Its description is explicit — "all publishable products". Anything with Publishable off is absent, by design. The internal worksheet is the one to use for a full picture.
3. Options
| Option | Default | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Include product images | On | Off produces a much smaller, faster PDF |
| Additional language | None | Adds a second language alongside the primary |
| Cover page | From Store Settings | Upload cover override replaces it for this brochure only |
The default cover is whatever is saved in Store Settings. The override here does not change it — it applies to the one document you are generating.
4. Step by step
- Brochure on the catalogue toolbar
- Choose the output type — read the description that appears
- Decide on images; leave them on unless size matters
- Add a second language if you need one
- Optionally upload a cover override
- Generate
Generation is asynchronous — the request is queued and the status polled. A large catalogue with images takes appreciably longer than a rate card without them.
5. The admin contract
| Must be true | Or else |
|---|---|
| A project is selected | Nothing to render |
| Products are marked Publishable | The customer brochure is empty |
| A cover exists in Store Settings, or one is uploaded | The document renders without a cover |
| Chromium is installed on the server | Generation fails — the renderer is headless Chromium |
Brochure PDFs are rendered with headless Chromium. On a host without it the job fails rather than producing a degraded document. This is an operator concern, not something a user can fix from the dialog.
6. Don't confuse this with…
| Product import | Reads a CSV in; the brochure writes a PDF out |
| Storefront pages | A live web catalogue, not a document |
| The Rate Card vs the Reconciliation worksheet | Prices for selling vs a table for checking |
7. Troubleshooting
| Symptom | Cause |
|---|---|
| The brochure is empty | No publishable products, or the category filter excluded everything |
| A product is missing | Publishable is off |
| No images in the PDF | Include product images was off, or the products have no hero asset |
| Generation never completes | Chromium missing on the server, or the catalogue is very large with images |
| The wrong cover appears | Store Settings holds a different cover; use Upload cover override |