Shopify gives you three ways to put a restaurant menu on your website: type it onto a Page with the built-in text editor, upload a PDF to Files and link to it, or paste an embed code into a section that accepts code, which in Shopify's own Dawn theme is called Custom Liquid. A typed page is the quickest to edit when the fish runs out, a PDF is the quickest to set up if the menu already exists as a file, and an embed is the route to a menu with a photo per dish, search and dietary filters. Whichever you choose, the page also has to be added to your navigation by hand, because Shopify does not put new pages in the navigation for you.
This guide covers the three routes, the Shopify labels for each, how to put the menu page in your navigation, what a trial store cannot do, how to check the result on a phone, and where MenuFramer fits.
Which way to add your menu on Shopify
A guest opens your site at 6 pm on a phone and taps Menu. What they get depends on which of the three routes you took, and the differences show up later, when a price changes or a dish sells out.
| Typed on a Page | PDF in Files | Embedded menu | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Where you edit | The page's rich text editor | Your design file, then a new upload | The menu service's own editor |
| What guests get | Text on the page, in your theme's fonts | A file that opens or downloads | The service's menu inside your page |
| Dish photos | Inserted one by one with Insert image | Whatever the PDF contains | Depends on the service |
| Dietary filters and search | None; dietary marks are typed into descriptions | Whatever the PDF contains | Depends on the service |
| Changing a price | Edit the line and click Save | Export a new PDF, upload it, update the link | Change it in the service |
| What Shopify needs | A Page and a navigation link | A file under 20 MB and a navigation link | A theme section that accepts code |
Choose by how often the menu changes
If prices or dishes change weekly, a typed page or an embed keeps up and a PDF falls behind, because every change means a new export and a new upload. If the menu is fixed for a season and already exists as a designed file, the PDF gets you live today. If you want each dish to carry a photo and guests to filter by what they can eat, that is what an embedded menu is for. Our guide to PDF menus and online menus covers what a PDF looks like on a phone and in search.
Before you start: pages, the theme editor and two meanings of menu
Shopify uses the word menu for the links at the top and bottom of your site. In this guide, navigation menu means those links, and menu on its own means the food. Three parts of the Shopify admin matter here. Pages, under Online Store, hold written content such as an About page or a menu page. The theme editor, which Shopify's help opens from Online Store with the Edit theme button, is where you add sections to a page template and where an embed code goes. Menus, under Content, is the navigation.
Shopify's help page on customizing themes recommends that you duplicate your theme before making changes, so you have a backup copy and can discard your work and start over. Do that first if you are going to touch the theme editor.
How to type your menu on a Shopify page
The typed page suits a short menu that changes often. Everything below uses the labels from Shopify's help pages on pages and the rich text editor.
Create the page
- In the Shopify admin, go to Online Store, then Pages.
- Click Add page.
- Enter a Title. Shopify's help notes that the title appears in browser tabs and in search results, so "Menu" or "Dinner menu" does the job.
- In the Content section, type or paste your menu.
- Under Visibility, keep Visible selected to publish the page when you save, or choose Hidden to keep it off the store while you work. For a hidden page, the calendar icon lets you set a publish date and time.
- Click Save.
Shopify's help page says that after saving you may need to reload your browser to see the change on the store, and that deleting a page also deletes any navigation item that points to it.
Lay out dishes and prices
The rich text editor gives you headings, lists and tables, which is enough for a menu.
- Type a section name such as Starters, highlight it, click Formatting and choose a heading level. Use the same level for every section.
- For dishes and prices, click Insert table, then click Insert table again to create a one-row, one-column table. Use the Insert table button again to add rows and a second column, so the dish sits in the left column and the price in the right.
- For a dish photo, place the cursor where it goes and click Insert image. Shopify's help says you can choose from Uploaded images, Product images or a URL, pick a size, and click Insert image.
- To see or edit the page's underlying code, click Show HTML. Shopify's help also calls this button Edit code, so look for either label, and click Show Editor to return.
- Click Save.
Keep each dish to a name, a short description and a price, and keep dietary marks in the description line. Our guide to allergens on restaurant menus covers the allergen notices US rules expect on a menu, which apply to a typed page as much as to paper.
Add the page to your navigation
A new page is not in your navigation until you put it there. Shopify's help page on editing menus gives these steps.
- Go to Content, then Menus.
- Click the title of the navigation menu you want, such as the one your theme shows in the header.
- Click Add menu item.
- Enter a Name, such as Menu.
- Click the Search or paste a link field, choose the Pages link type and select your menu page. Shopify cautions against pasting the page's address here, because a pasted address can break and send guests to a page-not-found error.
- Click Add, then Save menu.
How to link a PDF menu on Shopify
A PDF is the right route when the menu already exists as a designed file and changes rarely. Shopify's help page on uploading files gives the details.
Upload the file
- Go to Content, then Files.
- Click Upload files and choose the PDF. Shopify accepts generic files such as PDFs up to 20 MB.
- Find the file in the list and click the Link button beside it. The file's address is copied to your clipboard.
Shopify notes two restrictions. On a trial plan you must verify your email address before you can upload a PDF, and paid plans accept any file type except HTML. The help page also cautions that anyone with a file's link can open it, so upload only files meant to be public, which a menu is.
Put the link where guests will find it
Shopify's help says a file link can go into a page's content through the rich text editor or into your navigation. For the page, highlight the words "Download the menu", click Insert link, paste the address into Link to, add a Link title and click Insert link. For the navigation, follow the steps above and paste the file address into Search or paste a link. Every time the menu changes you repeat the upload and replace the link, which is the cost of this route.
How to embed a menu in a Shopify theme section
An embedded menu comes from a service that hosts the menu and gives you a short piece of code. The code goes into a theme section that accepts it. Shopify's developer changelog of 30 June 2021 describes a Liquid input setting that lets merchants add custom Liquid code directly from the theme editor without editing theme code, and points to the Custom Liquid section in Dawn, Shopify's own free theme, as the example. Liquid is Shopify's template language, and the Custom Liquid section's field, labeled Liquid code, is described in Dawn's files as the place to add app snippets or other code.
Add a Custom Liquid section to your menu page
- Duplicate your theme, as Shopify recommends before customizing.
- From Online Store, open the theme editor with Edit theme.
- Use the template drop-down at the top (it shows Home page by default) to open the page template your menu page uses.
- In the sidebar, click Add section and choose Custom Liquid, or type it into Search sections. Shopify's help says sections can be added to any page and that each template can hold up to 25 sections.
- Paste the embed code into the Liquid code field.
- Drag the section into place, then click Save.
Shopify's help says the available sections depend on your theme, so in a theme other than Dawn, look for a section whose purpose is custom code. If your theme has none, the page editor's Show HTML view exists, but we have not tested which code it keeps, so treat it as a last resort and check the result as a guest.
Check it as a guest
Open the page in a private browser window on a phone, so you see what a guest sees without an admin session in the way. Confirm the menu loads, the section is the width of the screen and the page still has your header and footer around it.
What a trial store and your theme change
Shopify's own pages set three limits worth knowing before you start. A trial store must verify its email address before it can upload a PDF, and its file types are restricted to a short list that includes PDF, JPEG, PNG and WebP. Paid plans accept any file type except HTML. And the sections you can add depend on the theme: Dawn, designed by Shopify and free, has the Custom Liquid section, while other themes name and arrange their sections differently. If you are choosing a theme for a restaurant, the Shopify Theme Store listing shows each theme's features before you install it.
How to check your menu on a phone
Shopify's help says that after you save a page, previewing it may need a browser reload. Then do the real check: open your site on a phone from the address a guest would use, tap Menu in the navigation, and read the first section without zooming. If dish names need a pinch to read, the typed page needs larger headings or the PDF needs to become a page. Point your table QR code at the menu page itself, which our guide to QR code menus covers, and put the same address in your Google Business Profile menu link, which our guide to adding your menu to Google walks through.
How MenuFramer fits a Shopify site
MenuFramer replaces the contents of the menu page on a website you already have, including a Shopify site, with a photo-first menu that guests can search and filter by dietary need. You keep Shopify for everything else. The menu itself is edited in MenuFramer, so when a dish sells out you hide it there and the change is live on your Shopify page without touching the theme.
MenuFramer's embed documentation gives three steps. Open the Share menu in the MenuFramer studio and choose On your website. Choose how the menu sits on your page: Just the menu places the whole menu in one framed piece and is the simplest to paste, while Menu + a page per dish writes the menu into your page as text and gives each dish its own address on your domain, which makes the dishes eligible to be found in search. Copy the code and paste it where your old PDF link or menu photos were, which on Shopify means the Liquid code field of a Custom Liquid section as described above. MenuFramer's pricing page lists the website embed on the Pro plan and the search-ready menu on Business.
Two honest notes. MenuFramer's embed page lists builder notes for Squarespace, WordPress.com and Wix, with no note for Shopify, and we have not tested the Menu + a page per dish code inside a Shopify theme, so we make no claim about how Shopify handles it; the framed Just the menu option is the one to try first. And an embedded menu is still a page on your Shopify site, so the navigation link in Content, then Menus, is still your job. The embed documentation has the steps, and the pricing page has the plan details. If you are weighing the three routes against each other more broadly, our guide to online menu options for restaurants compares them, and the same three routes on other builders are in our guides for Squarespace, Wix and WordPress.
Frequently asked questions
Can I add dish photos to a typed menu page on Shopify?
Yes. In the page's rich text editor, place the cursor where the photo goes, click Insert image, choose from your uploaded images or a URL, pick a size and insert it. Each photo is placed by hand, so a long menu with a photo per dish takes a while to lay out and to keep in step with price changes.
Why is my menu page missing from the navigation?
Shopify does not add new pages to the navigation. Go to Content, then Menus, open the navigation menu your theme shows in the header, click Add menu item, choose the Pages link type, select the page and save the menu. Pick the page from the list; Shopify says a pasted address can break the link.
Can I upload a PDF menu on a Shopify trial?
Shopify's help says a trial store must verify its email address before it can upload PDFs, and that trial uploads are limited to a short list of file types that includes PDF. Once verified, upload the file under Content, then Files, and copy its link with the Link button. Paid plans accept any file type except HTML.
Which Shopify section do I paste an embed code into?
In Dawn, Shopify's own free theme, add a Custom Liquid section from the theme editor and paste the code into its Liquid code field. In other themes the section may have a different name, because Shopify's help says available sections depend on the theme, so look for the one meant for custom code. Save, then open the page in a private window on a phone to confirm it loads.
How many sections can a Shopify page have?
Shopify's help on sections and blocks says each template can hold up to 25 sections. A menu page rarely needs more than a few: a heading, the menu itself and perhaps an image. If the limit ever bites, put the whole menu in one section.
Does Shopify's typed menu page work for search engines?
The text on a Shopify page is ordinary page text, and the title you give the page appears in browser tabs and search results according to Shopify's help. Whether a search engine shows your menu depends on far more than the builder, and no builder can promise a position. Our guide to restaurant menu SEO covers what Google documents about reading a menu.
Sources
- Shopify Help Center, Adding and updating pages, read November 2026.
- Shopify Help Center, Sections and blocks, read November 2026.
- Shopify Help Center, Add, remove, or edit menu items in your online store, read November 2026.
- Shopify Help Center, Using the rich text editor for content, read November 2026.
- Shopify Help Center, Uploading and managing files, read November 2026.
- Shopify Help Center, Customizing themes, read November 2026.
- Shopify Theme Store, Dawn, read November 2026.
- Shopify developer changelog, Online Store 2.0: introducing the new Liquid input setting, 30 June 2021, read November 2026.
- Shopify, Dawn repository on GitHub, the Custom Liquid section file and the English labels file, read November 2026.
- MenuFramer, Embed on your site and Pricing, read November 2026.
