---
title: Posts
permalink: /docs/posts/
---

Blogging is baked into Jekyll. You write blog posts as text files and Jekyll
provides everything you need to turn it into a blog.

## The Posts Folder

The `_posts` folder is where your blog posts live. You typically write posts
in [Markdown](https://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/), however HTML is
also supported.

## Creating Posts

To create a post, add a file to your `_posts` directory with the following
format:

```
YEAR-MONTH-DAY-title.MARKUP
```

Where `YEAR` is a four-digit number, `MONTH` and `DAY` are both two-digit
numbers, and `MARKUP` is the file extension representing the format used in the
file. For example, the following are examples of valid post filenames:

```
2011-12-31-new-years-eve-is-awesome.md
2012-09-12-how-to-write-a-blog.md
```

All blog post files must begin with [front matter](/docs/front-matter/) which is
typically used to set a [layout](/docs/layouts/) or other meta data. For a simple
example this can just be empty:

```markdown
---
layout: post
title:  "Welcome to Jekyll!"
---

# Welcome

**Hello world**, this is my first Jekyll blog post.

I hope you like it!
```

<div class="note">
  <h5>ProTip™: Link to other posts</h5>
  <p>
    Use the <a href="/docs/liquid/tags/#linking-to-posts"><code>post_url</code></a>
    tag to link to other posts without having to worry about the URLs
    breaking when the site permalink style changes.
  </p>
</div>



<div class="note info">
  <h5>Be aware of character sets</h5>
  <p>
    Content processors can modify certain characters to make them look nicer.
    For example, the <code>smart</code> extension in Redcarpet converts standard,
    ASCII quotation characters to curly, Unicode ones. In order for the browser
    to display those characters properly, define the charset meta value by
    including <code>&lt;meta charset=&quot;utf-8&quot;&gt;</code> in the
    <code>&lt;head&gt;</code> of your layout.
  </p>
</div>

## Including images and resources

At some point, you'll want to include images, downloads, or other
digital assets along with your text content. One common solution is to create
a folder in the root of the project directory called something like `assets`,
into which any images, files or other resources are placed. Then, from within
any post, they can be linked to using the site’s root as the path for the asset
to include. The best way to do this depends on the way your site’s (sub)domain
and path are configured, but here are some simple examples in Markdown:

Including an image asset in a post:

```markdown
... which is shown in the screenshot below:
![My helpful screenshot]("/assets/screenshot.jpg")
```

Linking to a PDF for readers to download:

```markdown
... you can [get the PDF]("/assets/mydoc.pdf") directly.
```

## Displaying an index of posts

Creating an index of posts on another page is easy thanks to
[Liquid](https://docs.shopify.com/themes/liquid/basics) and its tags. Here’s a
basic example of how to create a list of links to your blog posts:

{% raw %}
```html
<ul>
  {% for post in site.posts %}
    <li>
      <a href="{{ post.url }}">{{ post.title }}</a>
    </li>
  {% endfor %}
</ul>
```
{% endraw %}

You have full control over how (and where) you display your posts,
and how you structure your site. You should read more about [how templates
work](/docs/templates/) with Jekyll if you want to know more.

Note that the `post` variable only exists inside the `for` loop above. If
you wish to access the currently-rendering page/posts's variables (the
variables of the post/page that has the `for` loop in it), use the `page`
variable instead.

## Categories and Tags

Jekyll has first class support for categories and tags in blog posts. The difference
between categories and tags is a category can be part of the URL for a post
whereas a tag cannot.

To use these, first set your categories and tags in front matter:

```yaml
---
layout: post
title: A Trip
categories: [blog, travel]
tags: [hot, summer]
---
```

Jekyll makes the categories available to us at `site.categories`. Iterating over
`site.categories` on a page gives as another array with two items, the first
item is the name of the category and the second item is an array of posts in that
category.

{% raw %}
```liquid
{% for category in site.categories %}
  <h3>{{ category[0] }}</h3>
  <ul>
    {% for post in category[1] %}
      <li><a href="{{ post.url }}">{{ post.title }}</a></li>
    {% endfor %}
  </ul>
{% endfor %}
```
{% endraw %}

For tags it's exactly the same except the variable is `site.tags`.

## Post excerpts

You can access a snippet of a posts's content by using `excerpt` variable on a
post. By default this is the first paragraph of content in the post however it
can be customized by setting a `excerpt_separator` variable in front matter or
`_config.yml`.

```yaml
---
excerpt_separator: <!--more-->
---

Excerpt with multiple paragraphs

Here's another paragraph in the excerpt.
<!--more-->
Out-of-excerpt
```

Here's an example of outputting a list of blog posts with an excerpt:

{% raw %}
```liquid
<ul>
  {% for post in site.posts %}
    <li>
      <a href="{{ post.url }}">{{ post.title }}</a>
      {{ post.excerpt }}
    </li>
  {% endfor %}
</ul>
```
{% endraw %}

## Drafts

Drafts are posts without a date in the filename. They're posts you're still
working on and don't want to publish yet. To get up and running with drafts,
create a `_drafts` folder in your site's root and create your first draft:

```text
|-- _drafts/
|   |-- a-draft-post.md
```

To preview your site with drafts, simply run `jekyll serve` or `jekyll build`
with the `--drafts` switch. Each will be assigned the value modification time
of the draft file for its date, and thus you will see currently edited drafts
as the latest posts.