Title: Shortcode for subcategories
Last modified: October 10, 2018

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# Shortcode for subcategories

 *  Resolved [designsonline](https://wordpress.org/support/users/designsonline/)
 * (@designsonline)
 * [7 years, 6 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/shortcode-for-subcategories/)
 * Hi as the website im building is not yet ready to be indexed or viewed I am going
   to have to describe clearly the situation.
 * I have a website using the Avada theme, Woo commerce is installed.
    For reasons
   that I wont go in to here it has been decided to use pages that we have designed
   and built ourselves rather than the default Woo commerce shop categories pages.
 * So to scale down the situation imagine a shop with 4 categories called:
    Cat 
   1, Cat 2,Cat 3,& Cat 4
 * under each category are a number of subcategories (lets just pretend only 3 in
   each)
    so we now have Cat 1 |- Subcat 1a, Subcat 1b, Subcat 1c Cat 2 |- Subcat
   2a, Subcat 2b, Subcat 2c Cat 3 |- Subcat 3a, Subcat 3b, Subcat 3c Cat 4 |- Subcat
   4a, Subcat 4b, Subcat 4c
 * (in reality there will be hundreds of subcategories divided between around 9 
   top level categories)
 * I have created a page for each main category, and wish to just display the subcategories
   that sit within that category on the page using shortcode.
 * So I tried using this shortcode:
    [product_categories category=”cat-1″ limit=”
   26″ parent=”0″]
 * However for some reason this shows me these categories on the page:
    Subcat 1b
   | Cat 1
 * Not what I need, (I want to be shown: Subcat 1a | Subcat 1b | Subcat 1c )
 * So I try changing the shortcode to:
    [product_categories category=”cat-1″ limit
   =”26″ parent=”1″]
 * all the categories disappear and none are shown on the page.
 * So Next I try:
    [product_categories category=”subcat1a,subcat1b,subcat1c” limit
   =”26″]
 * which shows me:
    Subcat 1a | Subcat 1b | Subcat 1c | Cat 1
 * Why is it showing me the main category when I didnt ask for it?
    Also given the
   number of subcategories that im going to be using in each category I don’t want
   to have to type them all out each time.
 * I need a shortcode that will display all the subcategories of any specified category
   without needing to list them all in the shortcode.
 * Can anyone please help?
    -  This topic was modified 7 years, 6 months ago by [designsonline](https://wordpress.org/support/users/designsonline/).

Viewing 1 replies (of 1 total)

 *  [jessepearson](https://wordpress.org/support/users/jessepearson/)
 * (@jessepearson)
 * Automattic Happiness Engineer
 * [7 years, 4 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/shortcode-for-subcategories/#post-10959399)
 * [@designsonline](https://wordpress.org/support/users/designsonline/) I think 
   the wrong shortcode may be being used here. There are two listed here:
    [https://docs.woocommerce.com/document/woocommerce-shortcodes/#product-category-shortcodes](https://docs.woocommerce.com/document/woocommerce-shortcodes/#product-category-shortcodes)
 * `[product_category]` – Will display products in a specified product category.
   `[
   product_categories]` – Will display all your product categories.
 * `[product_category]` allows the argument `category` for categories to be passed
   either by slug or ID. This will display the products of the categories.
 * `[product_categories]` does not have the `category` argument, however, it has
   the `parent` argument, which should be an ID. This will display the categories
   of the parent specified.

Viewing 1 replies (of 1 total)

The topic ‘Shortcode for subcategories’ is closed to new replies.

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 * 1 reply
 * 2 participants
 * Last reply from: [jessepearson](https://wordpress.org/support/users/jessepearson/)
 * Last activity: [7 years, 4 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/shortcode-for-subcategories/#post-10959399)
 * Status: resolved