Getting started

Add Datum to your store, learn how its settings fit together, and set up the parts every store needs.

Add the theme

1. In the Shopify Theme Store, open Datum and choose Try theme. Datum is added to your theme library (Online Store › Themes) without changing your live store.
2. Choose Customize to open it in the theme editor. The pages show sample content until you add your own.
3. When you're ready, buy the theme and choose Publish.

How the theme editor works

Each page is a template made of sections, and many sections hold blocks: headings, text, buttons, images and more. Use the page picker at the top of the editor to move between the home page, product pages, collections and other templates. Add, hide, reorder and remove sections in the sidebar.

Theme settings (the brush icon) holds the store-wide choices: logo, colors, type, buttons, cards, images and more. Datum keeps one standard there and lets each section follow it.

Follow Theme settings

Most sections and blocks have switches such as Follow Theme settings for cards or Follow Theme settings for content placement. They're on by default: the section looks the way Theme settings says, and its own copies of those settings stay hidden. Turn a switch off to give that one section its own look; its own settings then appear and win. Words, images, links and chosen products always stay the section's own.

A few sections ship with a switch off on purpose, so they keep a distinct look: for example the home page's newsletter on a dark background.

Theme styles

Theme settings › Theme styles has one style, Datum: light, neutral, with rounded buttons.

Set up your brand

1. Logos. Theme settings › Brand takes a pair of logos (Logo, dark and Logo, light) and a pair of small square marks (Small logo, dark and Small logo, light). Use transparent PNG or SVG files. The light versions show wherever the background behind them is dark. Without a logo, the store name shows as a wordmark.
2. Favicon. Upload a square PNG of at least 32 by 32 pixels. Without one, the Small logo, dark is used.
3. Colors. Theme settings › Colors holds the color schemes. Each scheme sets a background, text, quiet text, lines, a raised background, buttons and errors. The Page color scheme is the one every section uses unless the section picks its own.
4. Type. Theme settings › Typography sets the Heading font and Body font, their weights and every text size. Font scale makes all text larger or smaller at once.
5. Social media. Add your profile links in Theme settings › Social media; they show in the footer.

Store setup checklist

• Create your menus in Online Store › Navigation. The header uses Main menu and the footer Footer unless you pick others. See Menus.
• Assign templates to collections that need them: category for large collections and look for styled sets. See Collections and looks.
• Set up filters in the Shopify Search & Discovery app. See Filters.
• Edit the contact page and replace the sample phone number, messaging link and email. See Contact page.
• Fill in your policies (Settings › Policies) and choose a Help bar menu. See Legal pages.
• Create size guide pages if you sell sized products. See Size guides.
• Check the shipping wording under prices and in the bag. See Shipping wording.

Updating Datum

When a new version is out, Shopify shows an update notice in Online Store › Themes. Updating adds a new copy of the theme to your library with your settings and content carried over; publish it when you're happy with it. Changes made to the theme's code are not carried over.