Reference¶

Material for MkDocs is packed with many great features that make technical writing a joyful activity. This section of the documentation explains how to set up a page, and showcases all available specimen that can be used directly from within Markdown files.

Configuration¶

Built-in typeset plugin¶

Sponsors only · insiders-4.27.0 · Plugin · Experimental

The built-in typeset plugin preserves HTML formatting in the navigation and table of contents. This means that now, code blocks, icons, emojis and other inline formatting will be preserved, which allows for a richer editing experience. Add the following lines to mkdocs.yml:

plugins:
  - typeset

For a demo, just take a look at the table of contents of this page – code blocks and icons are preserved from the section headlines; even highlighting inline code blocks is supported

Built-in meta plugin¶

Sponsors only · insiders-4.21.0 · Plugin · Experimental

The built-in meta plugin allows to set front matter per folder, which is especially handy to ensure that all pages in a folder use specific templates or tags. Add the following lines to mkdocs.yml:

plugins:
  - meta

If you need to be able to build your documentation with and without Insiders, please refer to the built-in plugins section to learn how shared configurations help to achieve this.

The following configuration options are available:

meta_file

Default: **/.meta.yml – This option specifies the name of the meta files that the plugin should look for. The default setting assumes that meta files are called .meta.yml:

plugins:
  - meta:
      meta_file: '**/.meta.yml' # (1)!

1. Note that it's strongly recommended to prefix meta files with a ., since otherwise they would be included in the build output.

Usage¶

Setting the page title¶

Each page has a designated title, which is used in the navigation sidebar, for social cards and in other places. While MkDocs attempts to automatically determine the title of a page in a four step process, the title can also be explicitly set with the front matter title property:

---
title: Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet # (1)!
---

# Document title
...

1. This line sets the title inside the HTML document's head for the generated page to the given value. Note that the site title, which is set via site_name, is appended with a dash.

Setting the page description¶

A Markdown file can include a description that is added to the meta tags of a page, and is also used for social cards. It's a good idea to set a site_description in mkdocs.yml as a fallback value if the author does not explicitly define a description for a Markdown file:

---
description: Nullam urna elit, malesuada eget finibus ut, ac tortor. # (1)!
---

# Document title
...

1. This line sets the meta tag containing the description inside the document head for the current page to the provided value.

Setting the page icon¶

Sponsors only · insiders-4.5.0 · Experimental

An icon can be assigned to each page, which is then rendered as part of the navigation sidebar, as well as navigation tabs, if enabled. Use the front matter icon property to reference an icon, adding the following lines at the top of a Markdown file:

---
icon: material/emoticon-happy # (1)!
---

# Document title
...

1. Enter a few keywords to find the perfect icon using our icon search and click on the shortcode to copy it to your clipboard:

Setting the page status¶

Sponsors only · insiders-4.22.0 · Experimental

A status can be assigned to each page, which is then displayed as part of the navigation sidebar. First, associate a status identifier with a description by adding the following to mkdocs.yml:

extra:
  status:
    <identifier>: <description> # (1)!

1. The identifier can only include alphanumeric characters, as well as dashes and underscores. For example, if you have a status Recently added, you can set new as an identifier:

   extra:
     status:
       new: Recently added
   

The page status can now be set with the front matter status property. For example, you can mark a page as new with the following lines at the top of a Markdown file:

---
status: new
---

# Document title
...

The following status identifiers are currently supported:

• – new
• – deprecated

Setting the page subtitle¶

Sponsors only · insiders-4.25.0 · Experimental

Each page can define a subtitle, which is then rendered below the title as part of the navigation sidebar by using the front matter subtitle property, and adding the following lines:

---
subtitle: Nullam urna elit, malesuada eget finibus ut, ac tortor
---

# Document title
...

Setting the page template¶

If you're using theme extension and created a new page template in the overrides directory, you can enable it for a specific page. Add the following lines at the top of a Markdown file:

---
template: custom.html
---

# Document title
...

template: custom.html

Customization¶

Using metadata in templates¶

on all pages¶

In order to add custom meta tags to your document, you can extend the theme and override the extrahead block, e.g. to add indexing policies for search engines via the robots property:

{% extends "base.html" %}

{% block extrahead %}
  <meta name="robots" content="noindex, nofollow" />
{% endblock %}

on a single page¶

If you want to set a meta tag on a single page, or want to set different values for different pages, you can use the page.meta object inside your template override, e.g.:

{% extends "base.html" %}

{% block extrahead %}
  {% if page and page.meta and page.meta.robots %}
    <meta name="robots" content="{{ page.meta.robots }}" />
  {% else %}
    <meta name="robots" content="index, follow" />
  {% endif %}
{% endblock %}

You can now use robots exactly like title and description to set values. Note that in this case, the template defines an else branch, which would set a default if none was given.