Creating your site¶

After you've installed Material for MkDocs, you can bootstrap your project documentation using the mkdocs executable. Go to the directory where you want your project to be located and enter:

mkdocs new .

Alternatively, if you're running Material for MkDocs from within Docker, use:

docker run --rm -it -v ${PWD}:/docs squidfunk/mkdocs-material new .

docker run --rm -it -v "%cd%":/docs squidfunk/mkdocs-material new .

This will create the following structure:

.
├─ docs/
│  └─ index.md
└─ mkdocs.yml

Configuration¶

Minimal configuration¶

Simply add the following lines to mkdocs.yml to enable the theme. Note that since there are several installation methods, minimal configuration might be slightly different:

theme:
  name: material

theme:
  name: material

theme:
  name: null
  custom_dir: mkdocs-material/material

  # 404 page
  static_templates:
    - 404.html

  # Necessary for search to work properly
  include_search_page: false
  search_index_only: true

  # Default values, taken from mkdocs_theme.yml
  language: en
  font:
    text: Roboto
    code: Roboto Mono
  favicon: assets/favicon.png
  icon:
    logo: logo

Advanced configuration¶

Material for MkDocs comes with many configuration options. The setup section explains in great detail how to configure and customize colors, fonts, icons and much more:

Furthermore, see the list of supported Markdown extensions that are natively integrated with Material for MkDocs, delivering a low-effort and unprecedented technical writing experience.

Previewing as you write¶

MkDocs includes a live preview server, so you can preview your changes as you write your documentation. The server will automatically rebuild the site upon saving. Start it with:

mkdocs serve # (1)!

1. If you have a large documentation project, it might take minutes until MkDocs has rebuilt all pages for you to preview. If you're only interested in the current page, the --dirtyreload flag will make rebuilds much faster:

   mkdocs serve --dirtyreload
   

If you're running Material for MkDocs from within Docker, use:

docker run --rm -it -p 8000:8000 -v ${PWD}:/docs squidfunk/mkdocs-material

docker run --rm -it -p 8000:8000 -v "%cd%":/docs squidfunk/mkdocs-material

Point your browser to localhost:8000 and you should see:

Building your site¶

When you're finished editing, you can build a static site from your Markdown files with:

mkdocs build

If you're running Material for MkDocs from within Docker, use:

docker run --rm -it -v ${PWD}:/docs squidfunk/mkdocs-material build

docker run --rm -it -v "%cd%":/docs squidfunk/mkdocs-material build

The contents of this directory make up your project documentation. There's no need for operating a database or server, as it is completely self-contained. The site can be hosted on GitHub Pages, GitLab Pages, a CDN of your choice or your private web space.