Quick start

It’s possible to create a new project online and start editing it within minutes.

Create a new project

1. Go to github.com/electricbookworks/electric-book and click ‘Use this template’. Follow the prompts to create a new repository for your project.

2. Your new project on GitHub will have a URL that looks like https://github.com/your-name/your-project-name/.

   Click in the address bar, and at the start of that line, insert gitpod.io/#, and hit Enter.

   Follow the prompts to launch your editing interface in Gitpod.

3. After a few minutes, when the Gitpod Terminal is ready, enter this command to serve a website of your project:

   npm run electric-book -- output
   

   When prompted, open the generated site in your browser and add /electric-book/ to the address in the address bar. E.g.:

   https://4000-electricboo-electricboo-u3np6cdtayw.ws-eu116.gitpod.io/electric-book/
   

You’re up and running! From here, you can make the project your own.

Note that the template includes two books:

• book: a bare-bones book to start working in; and
• samples: a long book containing loads of examples.

To find out how to add your own text from a Word file, see ‘Setting up a book’ > ‘Importing a text file’.

Edit and design the book

1. Open _data/works/[book]/default.yml (where [book] is the name of your new book folder) and replace the sample information there with your project and book information.

2. In the book’s folder, edit and add markdown files. If you create new ones, add their names to the files and nav lists in _data/works/[book]/default.yml.

3. To change the design, edit the .scss files for each output format. You create project-wide styles in _sass, and book-specific styles in book/styles. We suggest making all modifications in _sass/custom.

   See the ‘Design’ section for more detail.