WooCommerce plugin manual

• WordPress 5.8 or newer with WooCommerce installed and configured.
• PHP 7.4 or newer (PHP 8.x recommended).
• A DTF Pilot account — sign up free to get your license key and starter credit. No card needed.
• HTTPS on your store (needed for uploads and the checkout flow — any modern host has this).

1. Sign in at dtfpilot.com and download the plugin ZIP from your account page (it's also linked on the download page).
2. In WordPress admin go to Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin.
3. Choose the ZIP, press Install Now, then Activate.
4. A DTF Pilot menu appears in the WordPress sidebar. That's where everything lives.

1. Go to DTF Pilot → Settings in the WordPress sidebar.
2. Paste your license key (it looks like GSB-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX) and save.
3. The page confirms the key is active and shows your current credit balance.

The key binds to your store's domain the first time it validates. That binding is what lets the cloud render your print files and meter your account.

A gang sheet product is a normal WooCommerce product with the builder switched on.

1. Go to Products → Add New (or edit an existing product).
2. Set it as a Simple product and give it a name — “DTF Gang Sheet”, “Custom Transfer Sheet”, whatever your customers search for.
3. In the Product data panel, open the new Gang Sheet tab.
4. Fill in the sheet rules:

Publish the product. Visit it on the storefront and you'll see the 🚀 Build Your Gang Sheet button — that opens the builder.

Under DTF Pilot → Settings → Pricing model, choose how sheets are priced:

• Linear — price per length. The classic roll model: the customer pays per foot (or per metre) of sheet length, rounded up to your billing increment. Sheet width is fixed by the product.
• Area — price per square unit. The customer pays for square feet (or square metres) actually used. Better when you sell several widths and want one consistent rate.

In fixed sheet mode each sheet is one unit, so the price is simply per sheet.

Volume discounts

Set tiered pricing so bigger orders get a better rate — the builder shows the live price as the customer designs, and the cart charges the tier they land in.

Units and rounding

The same settings page carries Measurement units (imperial inches/feet or metric cm/m) and displayed decimals. This changes what customers see in the builder and on the order — pick it once, before you go live, so historical orders read consistently.

DTF Pilot → Settings holds the shop-wide rules:

• Low-resolution warning (DPI). The floor below which a customer is warned their art will print soft. 150 is a sensible default; 0 disables the warning. This is your best defence against “it printed blurry” complaints.
• Transfer types. Offer named film/finish options on the product, one per line.
• Order statuses. Which status counts as “in production”, and whether to hold orders with unpaid overage.
• Logos. A site logo for the builder and a separate logo printed on job reports.
• Local file cleanup. How long uploaded art stays on your server, plus a manual “run cleanup now”.

By default the plugin places the Build Your Gang Sheet button on the product page automatically — no theme editing.

If your theme puts it somewhere awkward, switch on Disable Automatic Button Placement in settings and place it yourself with the shortcode in your product template or a page builder block. That's the only situation where you touch theme files at all.

Gang sheet orders flow through your normal WooCommerce statuses. Two places care about them:

• Settings → Order Statuses — tell the plugin which status means “in production”, so reporting and production holds line up with how you actually work.
• Flight Deck — the desktop app fetches the statuses you choose per store, and can move an order to a status of your choosing after its sheets download. See the Flight Deck manual.

When a customer finishes a design, the order line carries the gang sheet: its dimensions, quantity and the design itself.

1. Open the order in WooCommerce → Orders.
2. The DTF Pilot panel on the order shows each gang sheet line with its size.
3. Press Download print file to get the full-resolution production PNG, composited in the cloud at 300 DPI.
4. Job report opens the visual production map — every design on the sheet, with sizes and counts, for your operator.

If you run more than one store, or want the whole thing automated, install Flight Deck — it pulls files for every store into RIP-ready folders, prints tickets, and can update the order status by itself.

DTF Pilot runs on a prepaid wallet. You're charged when a print file is produced — not per order, not per month.

• Your balance and full transaction log live in your account portal, with every download, top-up and credit listed to the cent.
• Top up any time; larger packages carry better rates (see pricing).
• Re-downloads never bill again, so archives and reprints are free.

The plugin updates through WordPress like any other: a notice appears under Plugins, and one click installs it. Updates are delivered from DTF Pilot's own channel, so you don't need a WordPress.org listing or a licence re-entry.

Keep it current — Flight Deck features (like real custom status names) sometimes depend on a matching plugin version.

The builder button doesn't appear on the product

• Check the product has the Gang Sheet tab filled in and is published.
• If your theme overrides WooCommerce templates, switch on Disable Automatic Button Placement and place the shortcode yourself.
• Clear any page cache — cached product pages are the single most common cause.

“License not active”

Confirm the key is pasted with no leading/trailing space, and that the store's domain matches the one bound to the licence. Moving from staging to live needs a re-bind — email support.

Uploads fail or the design disappears

Almost always a network or security layer between the browser and storage: corporate DLP, an aggressive firewall, or a browser extension that intercepts uploads. The builder automatically retries through a fallback route, so if it persists, send us the store URL and the approximate time and we'll trace it.

Print file looks different from the preview

Check the artwork's DPI badge in the builder — soft art at print size looks fine on screen. If the layout itself differs, tell us the order number; the print file is composited from the saved layout, so a mismatch is a bug we want to see.

Prices look wrong in the cart

Re-check the product's Price per unit, the shop-wide Pricing model (linear vs area) and any volume tiers. Note the minimum length applies to short designs, which is the usual explanation for “a tiny design cost more than expected”.