By default the PDF Invoices & Packing Slips for WooCommerce plugin restricts the view access for PDF documents to only users with manage_woocommerce capabilities or to logged-in customers from the ‘My Account‘ page on the frontend.
Sometimes there is a need to display a button or link for viewing and/or downloading the document, outside these parameters – which requires a different approach. For example, one might need to display the Invoice link on the thank you page or in an email.
Set permissions #
Path: WooCommerce > PDF Invoices > Advanced > Settings > Document link access type.
This setting has three options:
- Logged in (recommended)
- Guest
- Full
Logged in (recommended) #
Documents can be accessed by logged-in users only.
This is the default option.
Guest #
Document can be accessed by logged in and guest users.
With this option selected, being logged-in is not necessary.
- If the user is logged-in, the login access will be used to grant permission.
- If the user is not logged-in, a unique/special key to grant access.
The technique behind this setting is that: Instead of relying on nonces, the plugin generates a unique key for the document-order combination. If the order unique key corresponds to the order being viewed, the user is allowed to see the PDF document.
Full #
Documents can be accessed by everyone with the link.
This is ideal for situations where all the information is public.
