Welcome to the Draft guide. Follow the steps in order for a new site, or jump to the section you need from the menu.
Installing Draft
Draft is installed from your Ghost dashboard in a couple of minutes.
- Download
draft.zipfrom the link in your receipt email or from the Download page. - In Ghost Admin, open Settings → Design & branding.
- Choose Change theme, then Upload theme.
- Select the ZIP file. Keep it zipped; Ghost unpacks it for you.
- Press Activate. Your site now uses Draft.
New to Ghost? The official Ghost Help Center is a great place to learn the basics before you dive in.
Routes
Draft runs on Ghost’s standard routing, so you don’t need a custom routes.yaml. These URLs work as soon as the theme is active:
- Home:
/ - Posts and pages:
/{slug}/ - Tag archives:
/tag/{slug}/ - Author archives:
/author/{slug}/
Want a custom structure? Upload your own file in Settings → Labs → Routes.
Menus
Draft keeps the header clean: your links live in the slide-out menu, which opens from the two lines on the right of the header.
Main menu
Links added under Settings → Navigation → Primary appear as large links at the top of the menu, in the order you list them. The page the reader is on is highlighted in your accent colour.
Secondary links
Links under Settings → Navigation → Secondary appear as small links at the bottom of the menu. They’re a good place for pages like Contact, Newsletter or Terms.
Brand and design
Everything below lives in Settings → Design & branding.
Accent colour
Your accent colour fills the Subscribe button, tags, badges and highlights. Draft lets you choose one shade for light mode in Brand and a second one for dark mode under Theme → Accent color for dark mode, so it reads well in both.
Logo
Without a logo, Draft shows a simple round mark, with your publication name beside it in the menu and below it in the footer. Upload a logo to replace it, plus an optional version under Theme → Logo for dark mode. Since Draft opens in dark mode, a light logo for dark backgrounds is the one most readers will see. An SVG or transparent PNG works best.
Site icon
Upload a square image of at least 512 × 512px. Ghost creates every favicon size browsers need.
Fonts
Draft pairs Space Mono for headlines with IBM Plex Mono for body text. Both load automatically. If you choose different fonts under Brand → Typography, Draft uses those instead.
Dark and light mode
Draft opens in dark mode for every first-time visitor, whatever their device prefers. Readers can switch between Dark and Light at the bottom of the menu, and their choice is remembered on every page and every visit.
Homepage
Featured slider
Star a post as Featured in the post settings and it joins the full-screen slider at the top of the homepage. The four most recent featured posts are shown, each with its primary tag, date, excerpt and author. Readers move between them with the arrows, the dots, the arrow keys or a swipe.
With no featured posts, the homepage opens straight on your latest posts.
Use wide, high-quality feature images for featured posts. The slider shows them edge to edge, with a soft shadow behind the text.
Latest posts
Recent posts follow in a grid of square cards with tag, title, date and reading time. Featured posts carry a small lightning badge, and members-only or paid posts show a lock. A Load more button brings in the next posts without leaving the page.
Posts
Each post opens with its badges, title, excerpt, authors, date and reading time, followed by the feature image and its caption. Every editor card is styled, including galleries, bookmarks, callouts, toggles and embeds.
Table of contents
Use Heading 2 and Heading 3 in your post and Draft builds an “On this page” list beside the article. It stays in view as the reader scrolls and highlights the section they’re reading. Posts without headings simply don’t show it.
Excerpt
The line under the title comes from the Excerpt field in the post settings. Leave it empty to show no excerpt.
Share, tags and comments
A Share button opens Ghost’s share options. All of the post’s tags are listed after the article, followed by comments when they’re turned on.
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Up to four posts from the same primary tag appear after each article to keep readers exploring.
Pages and landing pages
Pages show their title, excerpt and feature image above a comfortable reading column.
To build a landing page, open a page’s settings and turn off Show title and feature image. Draft then:
- turns the floating header into a full-width bar at the top of the page,
- lets a full-width card at the very start or end of the page sit flush against the header and the footer, with no gap,
- hides the newsletter form in the footer, so your page’s own call to action leads.
For a strong opening, start your landing page with a full-width Header card. End it with a full-width Signup card to finish with a call to action.
Authors and tags
Author pages show the writer’s photo, name, bio, post count, location, website and social links, all taken from their staff profile in Settings → Staff. Without a photo, Draft shows their initials in your accent colour.
Tag pages show the tag’s image, name, description and post count. Add an image and description in Tags → edit tag.
Members and newsletter
Draft works with Ghost memberships out of the box. Signup, sign-in and account screens come from Portal, which you can configure in Settings → Membership.
Header button
Visitors see Subscribe in the header. Logged-in members see Account instead. If your site is invite-only, the button reads Sign in.
Footer newsletter
The footer invites visitors to subscribe with a short form. The title uses your site name, and the line below it comes from Theme → Newsletter description. Members and invite-only sites don’t see the form.
Paywall
On members-only and paid posts, readers without access see the start of the post, then a box inviting them to subscribe, sign in or upgrade their plan.
Comments
Enable Comments in Settings → Membership and choose whether all members or only paid members can comment. The comment count appears beside the Comments heading, or “No comments” when there are none yet.
Footer
The footer shows your logo, site description, social links and copyright line.
- Description: set it in Settings → General → Description.
- Social links: add your accounts in Settings → General → Social accounts. The “Find us everywhere” block hides itself when you have none.
- Copyright: edit the text after the © line in Theme → Copyright footer. HTML links are allowed.
Editing, translating and updating
Editing the code
- Download the active theme from Change theme → Installed.
- Unzip it. Styles and scripts live in
assets/, templates are.hbsfiles. - Zip the folder again and upload it as a new theme.
Changes to the theme code are not covered by support, so keep a copy of the original.
Translating
Set your site language in Settings → General. To add a language, copy locales/en.json, rename it (for example fr.json) and translate each value.
Updating
When a new version ships, we email you a fresh link. Upload the new ZIP the same way you installed it. Your settings, colours and menus stay as they are.
Changelog
- 1.0.0 — current — The first public version of Draft.