How to display the WooCommerce product description in a custom tab
If you are using WooCommerce Product Tabs to customize your product pages, you may want to automatically display the main product description in a custom tab, without manually copying and pasting text for every single product.
By default, WooCommerce does not include a native [product_description] shortcode. If you try entering [product_description] into a tab content area, it will simply render as plain text or remain blank.
To solve this, you can create a custom shortcode using a simple PHP snippet.
Step 1: Add the shortcode code snippet
To register the custom [product_description] shortcode on your site, add the following snippet to your theme using a dedicated code snippets plugin (such as Code Snippets or WPCode):
<?php
add_shortcode( 'product_description', 'display_product_description' );
function display_product_description( $atts ){
$atts = shortcode_atts( array(
'id' => get_the_id(),
), $atts, 'product_description' );
global $product;
if ( ! is_a( $product, 'WC_Product') )
$product = wc_get_product($atts['id']);
return apply_filters( 'the_content', $product->get_description() );
}
Note: If you are unsure how to add custom code snippets to your WordPress site safely, please follow our guide.
Step 2: Display the description in your product tab
Once you have added and activated the snippet:
- Go to your WooCommerce Product Tabs settings (or open a specific product tab's editor).
- Insert
[product_description]into the tab content area. - Save your changes.
The custom shortcode will now dynamically fetch and display the product's main description inside your new tab automatically for every product.