Documentation

PDF Distribution guide

Sell guides, e-books and reports through your WooCommerce store. Every buyer automatically receives their own personalised, protected copy — so a leaked copy always shows whose it was.

Overview

PDF Distribution connects your WordPress / WooCommerce shop to YourProDesk. Your shop keeps doing what it does well — product page, checkout, payment. YourProDesk does the rest: it stores the PDF, makes a personalised copy for each buyer, delivers it, and keeps a verifiable record of every sale.

How it works

1. You create a product in YourProDesk: upload the PDF and choose the protection.
2. You create a matching product in WooCommerce (price, description, checkout) — without a downloadable file.
3. You add one webhook to your store. It covers all your YourProDesk products.
4. A customer buys. When the order is paid and completed, WooCommerce sends the order to YourProDesk.
5. YourProDesk matches the order to your product, creates the buyer's personalised copy, records it, and emails the buyer.

Before you start

• A WordPress site with WooCommerce, and admin access to it.
• A YourProDesk account with credits — each sale uses one.
• The final version of your PDF (up to 200 MB). Products can't be edited after creation — see Why products are locked.

Creating a product

Go to Distribution → Sell Your Documents and click Add New Product.

After saving, the setup page opens with the steps to connect your store.

Protection options

Every copy is always personalised with the buyer's name, order number and purchase date. On top of that you choose:

Which to choose? For most guides and e-books: copyright page, blockchain QR and restrict editing. Add the password for high-value or confidential material — it's the strongest protection, at the cost of one extra step for the buyer.

Connecting WooCommerce

You do this once per store. The setup page (and the WP Guide button on each product) shows your own webhook address and secret with copy buttons.

1. Set up the WooCommerce product

1. In WordPress: WooCommerce → Products → Add New.
2. Name and price it as buyers should see it.
3. Product type Simple product, and tick both Virtual and Downloadable. Without Downloadable, WooCommerce leaves orders as Pending instead of Completed and the PDF is not delivered.
4. Don't upload a file under Downloadable files — YourProDesk stores and delivers the PDF. Leave it empty.
5. Publish, and note the product ID for your YourProDesk product.

2. Add the webhook

1. In WordPress: WooCommerce → Settings → Advanced → Webhooks → Add webhook.
2. Name: e.g. YourProDesk. Status: Active.
3. Topic: Order updated.
4. Delivery URL: paste your webhook address from YourProDesk.
5. Secret: paste your webhook secret.
6. API version: WP REST API Integration v3. Save.

One webhook covers every product. Each order is routed by the WooCommerce Product IDs you entered, so when you add more products later you only create the products — the webhook stays as it is. Keep the secret private: it's how YourProDesk knows an order really came from your store.

Testing the connection

Testing is free — no order is created and no credit is used. Use either method:

• WooCommerce test delivery — WooCommerce pings the address when you save the webhook.
• Validation order — in WordPress go to WooCommerce → Orders → Add order, set the customer email to [email protected], add your product, set the status to Completed and save. YourProDesk recognises this reserved address and marks the connection verified without delivering anything.

Each product shows its connection status:

What the buyer gets

1. They buy in your shop as usual.
2. Within moments of the order completing, they receive an email from YourProDesk with a secure sign-in link — one email per product purchased.
3. The link opens their library: every PDF they've bought from sellers using YourProDesk, with a download button.
4. The download is their own copy, watermarked with their name, order number and date, with the protection you chose.
5. They can set a password to sign in to their library directly in future and download again whenever they need to.

The blockchain record for each copy is written in the background, so the buyer never waits for it; it's retried automatically if the blockchain is briefly unavailable.

Managing products & sales

Sell Your Documents lists your products with their connection status, price, credit cost, number of sales and revenue. From each product you can open its details or the WP Guide.

Why products are locked

Once a product is created, its PDF and content can't be changed. Every buyer is guaranteed to receive exactly what was sold, and every copy matches its record. You can still:

• Pause a product — new orders for it are not fulfilled until you activate it again.
• Delete a product, as long as it has no sales yet.
• Publish a new version as a new product with the same WooCommerce Product ID, then pause the old product so only the new version is delivered.

Checking a copy (tamper detection)

Found your guide online, or want to confirm a file is genuine? Upload it on Distribution → Tamper Detection. YourProDesk calculates the file's fingerprint and compares it with its records — the file itself is not stored or shared.

What else is shown depends on who is checking: the seller sees which buyer and order the copy belongs to; the buyer sees their own order; anyone else sees only whether the copy is genuine. Even without uploading, the buyer's name watermarked on every page shows whose copy it was.

Credits

• Each fulfilled sale uses 1 credit — covering the personalised copy, copyright page, blockchain record and delivery. The cost in dollars depends on your plan; higher plans pay less per credit.
• Tests and validation orders are free.
• An order with several of your products uses one credit per product.
• Keep credits available — turn on auto-recharge under Account → Credits so sales are never held up.

Troubleshooting