Guide: A Documentation Theme for Manuals and User Guides

Guide is a sophisticated and versatile documentation theme for building online documentations, user guides, and product manuals. Featuring a clean design and a robust set of features, it offers extensive customization options to suit your needs. With its dark mode toggle, customizable color schemes, and collapsible navigation, the Guide theme ensures an exceptional user experience. Paired with the Typemill CMS and its powerful plugins, creating professional-grade online documentation, product manuals, or user guides has never been easier. Explore the Guide theme with the demo installation.

Screenshot of the light mode of Guide

Features of the Guide Theme

Toggle Dark Mode

The Guide documentation theme ships with a toggle button for a dark mode and a light mode, visible in the left sidebar. The Light Mode is a clean, minimalist design, perfect for bright environments. The Dark Mode provides a sleek, low-light design that enhances readability and reduces eye strain in darker settings.

Screenshot of the dark mode of the documentation theme guide

Color Customization

Both the dark and light mode color schemes are fully customizable within the settings of the documentation theme. This flexibility allows you to align the design with your brand identity or creative vision effortlessly.

Readymade Color Schemes

Get started quickly with Readymade Color Schemes available in the settings of the documentation theme. With just one click, you can switch between three different page layouts:

  • Standard: The default demo theme colors for a balanced, versatile look.
  • Pastel: A soft and colorful palette for a more gentle aesthetic.
  • Neon: A bold and vibrant design with striking neon hues.

You can also save your own custom layout as readymades, making it easy to switch between different page layouts for your online documentation.

Navigation

The Guide theme features a sidebar toggle that enhances usability and provides a distraction-free reading experience.

  • Desktop View: The sidebar is open by default but can be collapsed using a toggle icon for a cleaner workspace.
  • Mobile View: The sidebar starts closed and can be expanded with a button, ensuring optimal functionality on smaller screens.

Additionally, users can expand and collapse folders within the navigation, allowing for a more organized and intuitive browsing experience. The browser remembers the last state of the sidebar and navigation, so users return to their preferred setup seamlessly.

Advanced Customization Options

The Guide theme provides advanced settings that allow you to personalize your documentation theme in detail:

  • Logos: Choose between an image logo, a text logo, or a combination of both to represent your brand.
  • Fonts: Customize the typography by selecting system fonts for headlines and body text, ensuring a cohesive visual style.
  • Content Features:
    • Breadcrumb Navigation: Improve user orientation with a clear content hierarchy.
    • Print Button: Enable users to easily generate offline versions of your content.
    • Edit Button: Link to a GitHub repository or other platforms for collaborative editing.
    • Publish Date and Author Name: Display metadata to add transparency and credibility.
    • Next/Previous Navigation: Facilitate smooth navigation between pages.
  • Footer: Configure up to three flexible footer columns using markdown to add links, contact details, or other important information.

Use Cases and Bundles

The Guide Theme is a perfect solution for creating visually appealing online documentations. We provide two bundles packed with useful plugins and the Typemill CMS for advanced usage. Since Typemill is a Flat-File-CMS that does not need a database, you can download and unpack the bundles and start writing immediately.

The Documentation Bundle

The documentation bundle is perfect for software documentation, technical articles, and process guides. This bundle is packed with the Guide Theme and useful plugins like full-text search, code highlighting, mermaid, templates, revisions, and more.

Download the Documentation Bundle

User Manual Bundle

The user manual bundle is perfect for user guides or product manuals. The bundle provides additional plugins for full-text search, analytics, mermaid, templates, revisions, and even an ebook plugin to transform your manual into a professional PDF publication.

Download the Manual Bundle

How to Get Started

Start exploring the Guide theme in a few simple steps:

  • Try at the Demo Installation: See the Guide theme in action and explore its features.
  • Download the Documentation Bundle: Perfect for software documentation, technical articles, and process guides. Includes Typemill CMS and plugins like full-text search, code highlighting, and more.
  • Download the Manual Bundle: Ideal for user guides and product manuals. Comes with additional plugins like an ebook generator for professional PDF publications.
  • Check the License: The Guide theme is included in the Typemill Maker License, making it an excellent choice for professionals who want to create polished and effective documentation sites.

Customize your theme, experiment with settings, and create polished documentation with Typemill and the Guide theme today!

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