mkdocs-material/docs/customization.md

Customization

A great starting point

Project documentation is as diverse as the projects themselves and Material for MkDocs is a good starting point for making it look great. However, as you write your documentation, you may reach a point where some small adjustments are necessary to preserve your brand's style.

Adding assets

MkDocs provides several ways to interfere with themes. In order to make a few tweaks to an existing theme, you can just add your stylesheets and JavaScript files to the docs directory.

Additional stylesheets

If you want to tweak some colors or change the spacing of certain elements, you can do this in a separate stylesheet. The easiest way is by creating a new stylesheet file in your docs directory:

mkdir docs/stylesheets
touch docs/stylesheets/extra.css

Then, add the following line to your mkdocs.yml:

extra_css:
  - stylesheets/extra.css

Spin up the development server with mkdocs serve and start typing your changes in your additional stylesheet file – you can see them instantly after saving, as the MkDocs development server supports live reloading.

Additional JavaScript

The same is true for additional JavaScript. If you want to integrate another syntax highlighter or add some custom logic to your theme, create a new JavaScript file in your docs directory:

mkdir docs/javascripts
touch docs/javascripts/extra.js

Then, add the following line to your mkdocs.yml:

extra_javascript:
  - javascripts/extra.js

Further assistance can be found in the MkDocs documentation.

Extending the theme

If you want to alter the HTML source (e.g. add or remove some part), you can extend the theme. MkDocs supports theme extension, an easy way to override parts of a theme without forking and changing the main theme.

Setup and theme structure

Reference the Material theme as usual in your mkdocs.yml, and create a new folder for overrides which you reference using custom_dir:

theme:
  name: material
  custom_dir: overrides

!!! warning "Theme extension prerequisites"

As the `custom_dir` variable is used for the theme extension process, the
Material for MkDocs needs to be installed via `pip` and referenced with the
`name` parameter in your `mkdocs.yml`.

The structure in the overrides directory must mirror the directory structure of the original theme, as any file in the overrides directory will replace the file with the same name which is part of the original theme. Besides, further assets may also be put in the overrides directory.

The directory layout of the theme is as follows:

.
├─ assets/
│  ├─ images/                          # Images and icons
│  ├─ javascripts/                     # JavaScript
│  └─ stylesheets/                     # Stylesheets
├─ partials/
│  ├─ integrations/                    # 3rd-party integrations
│  ├─ language/                        # Localized languages
│  ├─ footer.html                      # Footer bar
│  ├─ header.html                      # Header bar
│  ├─ hero.html                        # Hero teaser
│  ├─ language.html                    # Localized labels
│  ├─ nav-item.html                    # Main navigation item
│  ├─ nav.html                         # Main navigation
│  ├─ search.html                      # Search box
│  ├─ social.html                      # Social links
│  ├─ source-date.html                 # Last updated date
│  ├─ source-link.html                 # Link to source file
│  ├─ source.html                      # Repository information
│  ├─ tabs-item.html                   # Tabs navigation item
│  ├─ tabs.html                        # Tabs navigation
│  ├─ toc-item.html                    # Table of contents item
│  └─ toc.html                         # Table of contents
├─ 404.html                            # 404 error page
├─ base.html                           # Base template
└─ main.html                           # Default page

Overriding partials

In order to override the footer, we can replace the footer.html partial with our own partial. To do this, create the file partials/footer.html in the overrides directory. MkDocs will now use the new partial when rendering the theme. This can be done with any file.

Overriding template blocks

Besides overriding partials, one can also override so called template blocks, which are defined inside the templates and wrap specific features. To override a template block, create a main.html inside the overrides directory and define the block, e.g.:

{% extends "base.html" %}

{% block htmltitle %}
  <title>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet</title>
{% endblock %}

Material for MkDocs provides the following template blocks:

Block name	Wrapped contents
analytics	Wraps the Google Analytics integration
announce	Wraps the Announcement bar
config	Wraps the JavaScript application config
content	Wraps the main content
disqus	Wraps the disqus integration
extrahead	Empty block to define additional meta tags
fonts	Wraps the webfont definitions
footer	Wraps the footer with navigation and copyright
header	Wraps the fixed header bar
hero	Wraps the hero teaser (if available)
htmltitle	Wraps the <title> tag
libs	Wraps the JavaScript libraries (header)
scripts	Wraps the JavaScript application (footer)
source	Wraps the linked source files
site_meta	Wraps the meta tags in the document head
site_nav	Wraps the site navigation and table of contents
styles	Wraps the stylesheets (also extra sources)
tabs	Wraps the tabs navigation (if available)

For more on this topic refer to the MkDocs documentation

Theme development

Material for MkDocs uses Webpack as a build tool to leverage modern web technologies like TypeScript and SASS. If you want to make more fundamental changes, it may be necessary to make the adjustments directly in the source of the theme and recompile it. This is fairly easy.

Environment setup

In order to start development on Material for MkDocs, a Node.js version of at least 12 is required. First, clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/squidfunk/mkdocs-material

Next, all dependencies need to be installed, which is done with:

cd mkdocs-material
pip install -r requirements.txt
npm install

Development mode

Start the Webpack watchdog with:

npm start

Then, in a second session, start the MkDocs server with:

mkdocs serve

Point your browser to localhost:8000 and you should see this documentation in front of you.

!!! warning "Automatically generated files"

Never make any changes in the `material` directory, as the contents of this
directory are automatically generated from the `src` directory and will be
overridden when the theme is built.

Build process

When you've finished making your changes, you can build the theme by invoking:

npm run build

This triggers the production-level compilation and minification of all stylesheets and JavaScript sources. When the command exits, the final files are located in the material directory. Add the theme_dir variable pointing to the aforementioned directory in your original mkdocs.yml.

Now you can run mkdocs build and you should see your documentation with your changes to the original theme.