# MkDocs

Project documentation with&nbsp;Markdown.

---

## Overview

MkDocs is a **fast**, **simple** and **downright gorgeous** static site
generator that's geared towards building project documentation. Documentation
source files are written in Markdown, and configured with a single YAML
configuration file.

### Host anywhere

MkDocs builds completely static HTML sites that you can host on GitHub pages,
Amazon S3, or [anywhere][deploy] else you choose.

### Great themes available

There's a stack of good looking themes available for MkDocs. Choose between
the built in themes: [mkdocs] and [readthedocs], select one of the 3rd
party themes in the [MkDocs wiki], or [build your own].

### Preview your site as you work

The built-in dev-server allows you to preview your documentation as you're
writing it. It will even auto-reload and refresh your browser whenever you save
your changes.

### Easy to customize

Get your project documentation looking just the way you want it by customizing
the theme.

---

## Installation

### Install with a Package Manager

If you have and use a package manager (such as [apt-get], [dnf], [homebrew],
[yum], [chocolatey], etc.) to install packages on your system, then you may
want to search for a "MkDocs" package and, if a recent version is available,
install it with your package manager (check your system's documentation for
details). That's it, you're done! Skip down to [Getting Started](#getting-started).

If your package manager does not have a recent "MkDocs" package, you can still
use your package manager to install "Python" and "pip". Then you can use pip to
[install MkDocs](#installing-mkdocs).

[apt-get]: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/AptGet/Howto
[homebrew]: http://brew.sh/
[dnf]: http://dnf.readthedocs.io/en/latest/index.html
[yum]: http://yum.baseurl.org/
[chocolatey]: https://chocolatey.org/

### Manual Installation

In order to manually install MkDocs you'll need [Python] installed on your
system, as well as the Python package manager, [pip]. You can check if you have
these already installed from the command line:

```bash
$ python --version
Python 2.7.2
$ pip --version
pip 1.5.2
```

MkDocs supports Python versions 2.6, 2.7, 3.3, 3.4, 3.5 and pypy.

#### Installing Python

Install [Python] by downloading an installer appropriate for your system from
[python.org] and running it.

!!! Note

    If you are installing Python on Windows, be sure to check the box to have
    Python added to your PATH if the installer offers such an option (it's
    normally off by default).

    ![Add Python to PATH](img/win-py-install.png)

[python.org]: https://www.python.org/downloads/

#### Installing pip

If you're using a recent version of Python, the Python package manager, [pip],
is most likely installed by default. However, you may need to upgrade pip to the
lasted version:

```bash
pip install --upgrade pip
```

If you need to install [pip] for the first time, download [get-pip.py].
Then run the following command to install it:

```bash
python get-pip.py
```

#### Installing MkDocs

Install the `mkdocs` package using pip:

```bash
pip install mkdocs
```

You should now have the `mkdocs` command installed on your system. Run `mkdocs
--version` to check that everything worked okay.

```bash
$ mkdocs --version
mkdocs, version 0.15.3
```

!!! Note
    If you are using Windows, some of the above commands may not work
    out-of-the-box.

    A quick solution may be to preface every Python command with `python -m`
    like this:

        python -m pip install mkdocs
        python -m mkdocs

    For a more permanent solution, you may need to edit your `PATH` environment
    variable to include the `Scripts` directory of your Python installation.
    Recent versions of Python include a script to do this for you. Navigate to
    your Python installation directory (for example `C:\Python34\`), open the
    `Tools`, then `Scripts` folder, and run the `win_add2path.py` file by double
    clicking on it. Alternatively, you can [download][a2p] the script and run it
    (`python win_add2path.py`).

[a2p]: https://svn.python.org/projects/python/trunk/Tools/scripts/win_add2path.py

---

## Getting Started

Getting started is super easy.

```bash
mkdocs new my-project
cd my-project
```

Take a moment to review the initial project that has been created for you.

![The initial MkDocs layout](img/initial-layout.png)

There's a single configuration file named `mkdocs.yml`, and a folder named
`docs` that will contain your documentation source files. Right now the `docs`
folder just contains a single documentation page, named `index.md`.

MkDocs comes with a built-in dev-server that lets you preview your documentation
as you work on it. Make sure you're in the same directory as the `mkdocs.yml`
configuration file, and then start the server by running the `mkdocs serve`
command:

```bash
$ mkdocs serve
INFO    -  Building documentation...
INFO    -  Cleaning site directory
[I 160402 15:50:43 server:271] Serving on http://127.0.0.1:8000
[I 160402 15:50:43 handlers:58] Start watching changes
[I 160402 15:50:43 handlers:60] Start detecting changes
```

Open up `http://127.0.0.1:8000/` in your browser, and you'll see the default
home page being displayed:

![The MkDocs live server](img/screenshot.png)

The dev-server also supports auto-reloading, and will rebuild your documentation
whenever anything in the configuration file, documentation directory, or theme
directory changes.

Open the `docs/index.md` document in your text editor of choice, change the
initial heading to `MkLorum`, and save your changes. Your browser will
auto-reload and you should see your updated documentation immediately.

Now try editing the configuration file: `mkdocs.yml`. Change the
[`site_name`][site_name] setting to `MkLorum` and save the file.

```yaml
site_name: MkLorum
```

Your browser should immediately reload, and you'll see your new site name take
effect.

![The site_name setting](img/site-name.png)

## Adding pages

Now add a second page to your documentation:

```bash
curl 'https://jaspervdj.be/lorem-markdownum/markdown.txt' > docs/about.md
```

As our documentation site will include some navigation headers, you may want to
edit the configuration file and add some information about the order, title, and
nesting of each page in the navigation header by adding a [`pages`][pages]
setting:

```yaml
site_name: MkLorum
pages:
    - Home: index.md
    - About: about.md
```

Save your changes and you'll now see a navigation bar with `Home` and `About`
items on the left as well as `Search`, `Previous`, and `Next` items on the
right.

![Screenshot](img/multipage.png)

Try the menu items and navigate back and forth between pages. Then click on
`Search`. A search dialog will appear, allowing you to search for any text on
any page. Notice that the search results include every occurrence of the search
term on the site and links directly to the section of the page in which the
search term appears. You get of all that with no effort or configuration on your
part!

![Screenshot](img/search.png)

## Theming our documentation

Now change the configuration file to alter how the documentation is displayed by
changing the theme. Edit the `mkdocs.yml` file and add a [`theme`][theme] setting:

```yaml
site_name: MkLorum
pages:
    - Home: index.md
    - About: about.md
theme: readthedocs
```

Save your changes, and you'll see the ReadTheDocs theme being used.

![Screenshot](img/readthedocs.png)

## Changing the Favicon Icon

By default, MkDocs uses the [MkDocs favicon] icon. To use a different icon, create
an `img` subdirectory in your `docs_dir` and copy your custom `favicon.ico` file
to that directory. MkDocs will automaticaly detect and use that file as your
favicon icon.

[MkDocs favicon]: /img/favicon.ico

## Building the site

That's looking good. You're ready to deploy the first pass of your `MkLorum`
documentation. First build the documentation:

```bash
mkdocs build
```

This will create a new directory, named `site`. Take a look inside the
directory:

```bash
$ ls site
about  fonts  index.html  license  search.html
css    img    js          mkdocs   sitemap.xml
```

Notice that your source documentation has been output as two HTML files named
`index.html` and `about/index.html`. You also have various other media that's
been copied into the `site` directory as part of the documentation theme. You
even have a `sitemap.xml` file and `mkdocs/search_index.json`.

If you're using source code control such as `git` you probably don't want to
check your documentation builds into the repository. Add a line containing
`site/` to your `.gitignore` file.

```bash
echo "site/" >> .gitignore
```

If you're using another source code control tool you'll want to check it's
documentation on how to ignore specific directories.

After some time, files may be removed from the documentation but they will still
reside in the `site` directory. To remove those stale files, just run `mkdocs`
with the `--clean` switch.

```bash
mkdocs build --clean
```

## Other Commands and Options

There are various other commands and options available. For a complete list of
commands, use the `--help` flag:

```bash
mkdocs --help
```

To view a list of options available on a given command, use the `--help` flag
with that command. For example, to get a list of all options available for the
`build` command run the following:

```bash
mkdocs build --help
```

## Deploying

The documentation site that you just built only uses static files so you'll be
able to host it from pretty much anywhere. [GitHub project pages] and [Amazon
S3] may be good hosting options, depending upon your needs. Upload the contents
of the entire `site` directory to wherever you're hosting your website from and
you're done. For specific instructions on a number of common hosts, see the
[Deploying your Docs][deploy] page.

## Getting help

To get help with MkDocs, please use the [discussion group], [GitHub issues] or
the MkDocs IRC channel `#mkdocs` on freenode.

[deploy]: user-guide/deploying-your-docs/
[mkdocs]: user-guide/styling-your-docs/#mkdocs
[readthedocs]: user-guide/styling-your-docs/#readthedocs
[MkDocs wiki]: https://github.com/mkdocs/mkdocs/wiki/MkDocs-Themes
[build your own]: user-guide/custom-themes/
[Amazon S3]: http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonS3/latest/dev/WebsiteHosting.html
[get-pip.py]: https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py
[pages]: user-guide/configuration/#pages
[discussion group]: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/mkdocs
[GitHub issues]: https://github.com/mkdocs/mkdocs/issues
[GitHub project pages]: https://help.github.com/articles/creating-project-pages-manually/
[pip]: http://pip.readthedocs.io/en/stable/installing/
[Python]: https://www.python.org/
[site_name]: user-guide/configuration/#site_name
[theme]: user-guide/configuration/#theme