White Paper

White Paper is a Jekyll theme for writers and developers who want a clean, content-focused blog with integrated code sharing.

What is White Paper?

White Paper is a Jekyll theme that produces a static blog from Markdown posts, with a blog listing page, a detail page, and an about page. It takes posts created via the jekyll-compose gem and outputs a full static site that can be served on GitHub Pages. The theme is authored by Vinit Kumar and is hosted on GitHub under the white-paper repository.

Key Features

• Content-first layout — A minimal design that puts essays and code at the center, aimed at writers and developers.
• jekyll-compose integration — Create new posts with the command bundle exec jekyll post "Title", which generates a timestamped Markdown file in _posts.
• Right-to-left (RTL) support — Set rtl: true in _config.yml to generate a separate right-to-left stylesheet for Arabic or other RTL posts.
• Vite-powered CSS build — Uses Vite to bundle and minify styles, producing dist/css/main.min.css plus a main.min.rtl.css variant via rtlcss.
• Six syntax highlighting themes — Choose from emacs, github, monokai, native, vim, or the default syntax theme by editing css/main.scss and running yarn build.
• GitHub Pages ready — Fork the repository, rename it to username.github.io, and update _config.yml and the CSS link in head.html to absolute_url to publish.

Who is it for?

• Writers seeking a minimal, typography-focused blog without extra clutter.
• Developers who want to publish essays with code snippets and rely on built-in syntax highlighting.
• Bloggers working in Arabic or other right-to-left languages who need a theme that switches layout direction.
• Jekyll users comfortable with the command line to manage posts via bundle exec jekyll post.

What can you do with White Paper?

• Personal blogging: Build a single-author blog with a home page, post detail pages, and an about page.
• Technical writing: Publish posts with code examples and choose from six syntax highlighting styles.
• RTL publishing: Set rtl: true and get a right-to-left stylesheet for Arabic-language posts.
• Local development: Run the site at http://127.0.0.1:4000 with bundle exec jekyll serve after building CSS with Vite.

How does White Paper work?

1. Fork the repository on GitHub and rename it to username.github.io.
2. Update _config.yml with your master_repo flag, url, and rtl setting; also change the stylesheet link in head.html to use absolute_url.
3. For local development, install Ruby, Jekyll, and Node, then run yarn install, bundle install, yarn build, and bundle exec jekyll serve.
4. Create posts with bundle exec jekyll post "Post Title".

Pricing

White Paper is free and open source. The repository includes a license file, and the project accepts contributions via Open Collective.

Alternatives

• Minimal Mistakes
• Chirpy

FAQ

Is White Paper free to use?

Yes, White Paper is an open-source Jekyll theme on GitHub with a license file. You can fork it and run your own blog without paying any license fees.

How do I create a new post?

With the bundled jekyll-compose gem run bundle exec jekyll post "Your Title" in your terminal. It creates a new Markdown file in _posts with a timestamped filename.

Does White Paper support Arabic or other RTL languages?

Yes, set rtl: true in _config.yml. The theme uses rtlcss to generate a right-to-left stylesheet, and the CSS build creates main.min.rtl.css.

What syntax highlighting themes are included?

Six themes: emacs, github, monokai, native, vim, and the default syntax.css. Change the one you want in css/main.scss and run yarn build.

How do I run the site locally?

Install Ruby, Jekyll, and Node, then execute yarn install, bundle install, yarn build, and bundle exec jekyll serve. The site will be available at http://127.0.0.1:4000.