mkdocs-material/docs/creating-your-site.md

template
overrides/main.html

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:

=== "Unix"

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

=== "Windows"

```
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

Depending on your installation method, you can now add the following lines to mkdocs.yml in your project root. If you installed Material for MkDocs using pip or docker, add:

theme:
  name: material

If you cloned Material for MkDocs from GitHub, add:

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

Advanced configuration

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

• Changing the colors
• Changing the fonts
• Changing the language
• Changing the logo and icons
• Setting up navigation
• Setting up site search
• Setting up site analytics
• Setting up the header
• Adding social links
• Adding a git repository
• Adding a comment system

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

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

=== "Unix"

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

=== "Windows"

```
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

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.