By the end of this the Atlas Page Builder app embed will be active on your theme, and you will be able to publish pages. This takes under a minute. You need to be able to edit the theme, which means the Manage themes permission in Shopify if you are working on someone else's store.
Every page Atlas publishes depends on this embed. Without it, publishing is blocked and any page already in your theme will not render properly.
In this article:
The quickest way, from Atlas
Atlas offers to do most of this for you whenever it notices the embed is off.
Open the Atlas editor and select
Publish pages, or find the Theme extensions card on your dashboard.When you see
Enable Atlas in your theme to publish, selectActivate app embed. On the dashboard card the button isActivate.Shopify's theme editor opens with the Atlas Page Builder embed already switched on.
Select
Savein the theme editor.Return to Atlas. It re-checks on its own, showing
Checking app embed status...while it does.
The prompt says exactly this: Press Save in the theme editor — we'll re-check automatically.
⚠️ Save is what applies the change. Opening the theme editor turns the toggle on, but nothing happens until you save. If Atlas still reports the embed as off, this is almost always why.
Doing it manually in the theme editor
If the button does not open the right place, do it directly. This is also the method to use for a theme other than your published one.
In your Shopify admin, go to Online Store, then Themes.
Find the theme you want, select the three-dot menu, and choose Edit code or select Customize.
In the theme editor, open Theme settings using the gear icon at the top of the left panel.
Select App embeds.
Find
Atlas Page Builderand turn the toggle on.Select Save.
Atlas gives the same instructions as a fallback: Button not working? In your theme editor, open Theme settings → App embeds and turn on "Atlas Page Builder".
Confirming it worked
Open your Atlas dashboard and look at the Theme extensions card. Atlas Page Builder should show Active.
If it still shows Inactive, check that you saved in the theme editor, and check you enabled it on the right theme. The dashboard card reports on your published theme, named in the card's subtitle.
Doing this for more than one theme
The embed is enabled per theme, not per store. That matters in three common situations:
Situation | What to do |
You publish Atlas pages into a theme that is not live | Enable the embed on that theme too |
You duplicate a theme to work on a copy | The duplicate usually keeps the setting, but confirm before publishing it |
You install or switch to a new theme | Enable the embed on the new theme before making it live |
⚠️ Switching to a theme without the embed will break every Atlas page on your storefront at once. Enable the embed on the new theme first, while it is still unpublished, then publish the theme.
If the button does not work
Work through these in order:
Use the manual route above. It always works and takes about thirty seconds.
Check your permissions. Editing app embeds needs theme editing permission on the store.
Confirm you are on the right theme. The theme editor opens on one specific theme, and it may not be the one you meant.
Refresh Atlas. If you saved in the theme editor but Atlas has not noticed, reload the Atlas page and check the Theme extensions card again, or select
Re-check.
If the embed is on and saved but Atlas still reports it as inactive, contact support from the chat bubble in Atlas, or at support@helloatlas.io, with your store URL and the name of the theme.