Manuscript Theme

📄 License & Pricing

	Free	Paid — $49
Personal / non-commercial site	✅	✅
Footer attribution required	✅ must keep	❌ removed
Commercial / client projects	❌	✅
Future theme updates	❌	✅
Private source repo access	❌	✅

Free to use on personal projects — just keep the small "Theme by csswitch" footer link intact.
Buy the $49 license to remove the attribution, use commercially, and receive future updates.

Buy on Gumroad — $49 →

See LICENSE for full terms.

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Editorial magazine-style Jekyll theme for writers, essayists, and independent publishers.

Live Demo →

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Overview

Manuscript is a Jekyll theme designed around the principles of print editorial typography. Drop caps, pull quotes, Oxford double rules, warm cream backgrounds, and exquisite serif fonts — built for long-form writing, not dashboards.

Inspired by The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and Granta.

Features

• 🖋 Drop cap on first paragraph of every post
• 📐 Oxford double rule as structural separator
• 💬 Pull quote blockquote style (oversized quotation mark)
• 🎨 Editorial color palette — warm cream, ink, editorial red accent
• 📰 Two-column post grid on homepage
• 🔖 Featured first post — lead article treatment
• 🏷 Tags cloud + per-tag archive page
• 📅 Year-grouped archive
• ⏱ Reading time (vanilla JS, no library)
• 📋 Copy code button on all code blocks
• 📱 Responsive — mobile-first
• 🔍 SEO optimized — jekyll-seo-tag
• 📡 RSS feed — jekyll-feed
• ⚡ No jQuery — vanilla JS only
• 🔌 GitHub Pages compatible plugins only

Fonts

Role	Font
Display/Headlines	Cormorant Garamond (600, 700, italic)
Body copy	Lora (400, 500, italic)
Code	IBM Plex Mono
UI/meta	IBM Plex Sans

All loaded from Google Fonts — no self-hosting required.

Color Palette

Token	Hex	Usage
$cream	#faf7f2	Page background
$cream-2	#f0ebe2	Card backgrounds
$ink	#1a1410	Headlines
$ink-dark	#0d0a07	Masthead background
$accent	#8b1a1a	Editorial red (links, rules, hover)
$text	#2a211a	Body text

Installation

Quick Start

git clone https://github.com/csswitch/jekyll-manuscript-theme.git my-site
cd my-site
bundle install
bundle exec jekyll serve

Use with Existing Site

1. Copy _sass/, _layouts/, assets/, _config.yml to your project
2. Update _config.yml with your site details
3. Run bundle install && bundle exec jekyll serve

Configuration

# _config.yml
title: Your Publication Name
description: "Tagline or description"
url: "https://yourusername.github.io"

# Manuscript theme config
manuscript:
  drop_cap: true          # Drop cap on first paragraph of posts
  pullquote: true         # Styled blockquotes as pull quotes
  reading_time: true      # Reading time in post header
  issue_number: "Vol. 1"  # Shown in masthead (optional)

File Structure

jekyll-manuscript-theme/
├── _config.yml
├── _layouts/
│   ├── default.html      # Base layout (masthead + nav + footer)
│   ├── home.html         # Post list with featured first post
│   ├── post.html         # Individual post with drop cap + header
│   └── page.html         # Generic page
├── _sass/
│   ├── _variables.scss   # Design tokens, fonts, mixins
│   ├── _base.scss        # Typography reset, blockquotes, tables
│   ├── _layout.scss      # Masthead, nav, page wrapper, footer
│   └── _components.scss  # Cards, tags, headers, pagination
├── assets/
│   ├── css/main.scss
│   ├── js/manuscript.js
│   └── img/favicon.svg
├── _posts/
│   └── YYYY-MM-DD-*.md
├── index.html
├── about.md
├── archive.md
└── tags.md

License

MIT License — free to use for personal and commercial projects.

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Part of the csswitch premium Jekyll template pack.
Browse all 10 themes: csswitch.github.io