Configuring Renderers
Renderers (also called “backends”) are responsible for creating the output of the book.
The following backends are built-in:
html
— This renders the book to HTML. This is enabled by default if no other[output]
tables are defined inbook.toml
.markdown
— This outputs the book as markdown after running the preprocessors. This is useful for debugging preprocessors.
The community has developed several backends. See the Third Party Plugins wiki page for a list of available backends.
For information on how to create a new backend, see the Backends for Developers chapter.
Output tables
Backends can be added by including a output
table in book.toml
with the name of the backend.
For example, if you have a backend called mdbook-wordcount
, then you can include it with:
[output.wordcount]
With this table, mdBook will execute the mdbook-wordcount
backend.
This table can include additional key-value pairs that are specific to the backend. For example, if our example backend needed some extra configuration options:
[output.wordcount]
ignores = ["Example Chapter"]
If you define any [output]
tables, then the html
backend is not enabled by default.
If you want to keep the html
backend running, then just include it in the book.toml
file.
For example:
[book]
title = "My Awesome Book"
[output.wordcount]
[output.html]
If more than one output
table is included, this changes the behavior for the layout of the output directory.
If there is only one backend, then it places its output directly in the book
directory (see build.build-dir
to override this location).
If there is more than one backend, then each backend is placed in a separate directory underneath book
.
For example, the above would have directories book/html
and book/wordcount
.
Custom backend commands
By default when you add an [output.foo]
table to your book.toml
file,
mdbook
will try to invoke the mdbook-foo
executable.
If you want to use a different program name or pass in command-line arguments,
this behaviour can be overridden by adding a command
field.
[output.random]
command = "python random.py"
Optional backends
If you enable a backend that isn’t installed, the default behavior is to throw an error. This behavior can be changed by marking the backend as optional:
[output.wordcount]
optional = true
This demotes the error to a warning.
HTML renderer options
The HTML renderer has a variety of options detailed below.
They should be specified in the [output.html]
table of the book.toml
file.
# Example book.toml file with all output options.
[book]
title = "Example book"
authors = ["John Doe", "Jane Doe"]
description = "The example book covers examples."
[output.html]
theme = "my-theme"
default-theme = "light"
preferred-dark-theme = "navy"
smart-punctuation = true
mathjax-support = false
copy-fonts = true
additional-css = ["custom.css", "custom2.css"]
additional-js = ["custom.js"]
no-section-label = false
git-repository-url = "https://github.com/rust-lang/mdBook"
git-repository-icon = "fa-github"
edit-url-template = "https://github.com/rust-lang/mdBook/edit/master/guide/{path}"
site-url = "/example-book/"
cname = "myproject.rs"
input-404 = "not-found.md"
The following configuration options are available:
- theme: mdBook comes with a default theme and all the resource files needed for it. But if this option is set, mdBook will selectively overwrite the theme files with the ones found in the specified folder.
- default-theme: The theme color scheme to select by default in the
‘Change Theme’ dropdown. Defaults to
light
. - preferred-dark-theme: The default dark theme. This theme will be used if
the browser requests the dark version of the site via the
prefers-color-scheme
CSS media query. Defaults tonavy
. - smart-punctuation: Converts quotes to curly quotes,
...
to…
,--
to en-dash, and---
to em-dash. See [Smart Punctuation]. Defaults tofalse
. - curly-quotes: Deprecated alias for
smart-punctuation
. - mathjax-support: Adds support for MathJax. Defaults to
false
. - copy-fonts: (Deprecated) If
true
(the default), mdBook uses its built-in fonts which are copied to the output directory. Iffalse
, the built-in fonts will not be used. This option is deprecated. If you want to define your own custom fonts, create atheme/fonts/fonts.css
file and store the fonts in thetheme/fonts/
directory. - google-analytics: This field has been deprecated and will be removed in a future release.
Use the
theme/head.hbs
file to add the appropriate Google Analytics code instead. - additional-css: If you need to slightly change the appearance of your book without overwriting the whole style, you can specify a set of stylesheets that will be loaded after the default ones where you can surgically change the style.
- additional-js: If you need to add some behaviour to your book without removing the current behaviour, you can specify a set of JavaScript files that will be loaded alongside the default one.
- no-section-label: mdBook by defaults adds numeric section labels in the table of
contents column. For example, “1.”, “2.1”. Set this option to true to disable
those labels. Defaults to
false
. - git-repository-url: A url to the git repository for the book. If provided an icon link will be output in the menu bar of the book.
- git-repository-icon: The FontAwesome icon class to use for the git
repository link. Defaults to
fa-github
which looks like . If you are not using GitHub, another option to consider isfa-code-fork
which looks like . - edit-url-template: Edit url template, when provided shows a
“Suggest an edit” button (which looks like ) for directly jumping to editing the currently
viewed page. For e.g. GitHub projects set this to
https://github.com/<owner>/<repo>/edit/<branch>/{path}
or for Bitbucket projects set it tohttps://bitbucket.org/<owner>/<repo>/src/<branch>/{path}?mode=edit
where {path} will be replaced with the full path of the file in the repository. - input-404: The name of the markdown file used for missing files.
The corresponding output file will be the same, with the extension replaced with
html
. Defaults to404.md
. - site-url: The url where the book will be hosted. This is required to ensure
navigation links and script/css imports in the 404 file work correctly, even when accessing
urls in subdirectories. Defaults to
/
. Ifsite-url
is set, make sure to use document relative links for your assets, meaning they should not start with/
. - cname: The DNS subdomain or apex domain at which your book will be hosted. This string will be written to a file named CNAME in the root of your site, as required by GitHub Pages (see Managing a custom domain for your GitHub Pages site).
[output.html.print]
The [output.html.print]
table provides options for controlling the printable output.
By default, mdBook will include an icon on the top right of the book (which looks like ) that will print the book as a single page.
[output.html.print]
enable = true # include support for printable output
page-break = true # insert page-break after each chapter
- enable: Enable print support. When
false
, all print support will not be rendered. Defaults totrue
. - page-break: Insert page breaks between chapters. Defaults to
true
.
[output.html.fold]
The [output.html.fold]
table provides options for controlling folding of the chapter listing in the navigation sidebar.
[output.html.fold]
enable = false # whether or not to enable section folding
level = 0 # the depth to start folding
- enable: Enable section-folding. When off, all folds are open.
Defaults to
false
. - level: The higher the more folded regions are open. When level is 0, all
folds are closed. Defaults to
0
.
[output.html.playground]
The [output.html.playground]
table provides options for controlling Rust sample code blocks, and their integration with the Rust Playground.
[output.html.playground]
editable = false # allows editing the source code
copyable = true # include the copy button for copying code snippets
copy-js = true # includes the JavaScript for the code editor
line-numbers = false # displays line numbers for editable code
runnable = true # displays a run button for rust code
- editable: Allow editing the source code. Defaults to
false
. - copyable: Display the copy button on code snippets. Defaults to
true
. - copy-js: Copy JavaScript files for the editor to the output directory.
Defaults to
true
. - line-numbers: Display line numbers on editable sections of code. Requires both
editable
andcopy-js
to betrue
. Defaults tofalse
. - runnable: Displays a run button for rust code snippets. Changing this to
false
will disable the run in playground feature globally. Defaults totrue
.
[output.html.code]
The [output.html.code]
table provides options for controlling code blocks.
[output.html.code]
# A prefix string per language (one or more chars).
# Any line starting with whitespace+prefix is hidden.
hidelines = { python = "~" }
- hidelines: A table that defines how hidden code lines work for each language. The key is the language and the value is a string that will cause code lines starting with that prefix to be hidden.
[output.html.search]
The [output.html.search]
table provides options for controlling the built-in text search.
mdBook must be compiled with the search
feature enabled (on by default).
[output.html.search]
enable = true # enables the search feature
limit-results = 30 # maximum number of search results
teaser-word-count = 30 # number of words used for a search result teaser
use-boolean-and = true # multiple search terms must all match
boost-title = 2 # ranking boost factor for matches in headers
boost-hierarchy = 1 # ranking boost factor for matches in page names
boost-paragraph = 1 # ranking boost factor for matches in text
expand = true # partial words will match longer terms
heading-split-level = 3 # link results to heading levels
copy-js = true # include Javascript code for search
- enable: Enables the search feature. Defaults to
true
. - limit-results: The maximum number of search results. Defaults to
30
. - teaser-word-count: The number of words used for a search result teaser.
Defaults to
30
. - use-boolean-and: Define the logical link between multiple search words. If
true, all search words must appear in each result. Defaults to
false
. - boost-title: Boost factor for the search result score if a search word
appears in the header. Defaults to
2
. - boost-hierarchy: Boost factor for the search result score if a search word
appears in the hierarchy. The hierarchy contains all titles of the parent
documents and all parent headings. Defaults to
1
. - boost-paragraph: Boost factor for the search result score if a search word
appears in the text. Defaults to
1
. - expand: True if search should match longer results e.g. search
micro
should matchmicrowave
. Defaults totrue
. - heading-split-level: Search results will link to a section of the document
which contains the result. Documents are split into sections by headings this
level or less. Defaults to
3
. (### This is a level 3 heading
) - copy-js: Copy JavaScript files for the search implementation to the output
directory. Defaults to
true
.
[output.html.redirect]
The [output.html.redirect]
table provides a way to add redirects.
This is useful when you move, rename, or remove a page to ensure that links to the old URL will go to the new location.
[output.html.redirect]
"/appendices/bibliography.html" = "https://rustc-dev-guide.rust-lang.org/appendix/bibliography.html"
"/other-installation-methods.html" = "../infra/other-installation-methods.html"
The table contains key-value pairs where the key is where the redirect file needs to be created, as an absolute path from the build directory, (e.g. /appendices/bibliography.html
).
The value can be any valid URI the browser should navigate to (e.g. https://rust-lang.org/
, /overview.html
, or ../bibliography.html
).
This will generate an HTML page which will automatically redirect to the given location.
Note that the source location does not support #
anchor redirects.
Markdown Renderer
The Markdown renderer will run preprocessors and then output the resulting
Markdown. This is mostly useful for debugging preprocessors, especially in
conjunction with mdbook test
to see the Markdown that mdbook
is passing
to rustdoc
.
The Markdown renderer is included with mdbook
but disabled by default.
Enable it by adding an empty table to your book.toml
as follows:
[output.markdown]
There are no configuration options for the Markdown renderer at this time; only whether it is enabled or disabled.
See the preprocessors documentation for how to specify which preprocessors should run before the Markdown renderer.