A page is any file ending with .md in the content directory, except files named _index.md.

If a file ending with .md is named index.md, it will generate a page with the name of its directory (for example, /content/about/index.md would create a page at [base_url]/about). (Note the lack of an underscore; if the file were named _index.md, then it would create a section at [base_url]/about, as discussed in a previous part of this documentation. In contrast, naming the file index.md will create a page at [base_url]/about).

If the file is given any name other than index.md or _index.md, then it will create a page with that name (without the .md). For example, naming a file in the root of your content directory about.md would create a page at [base_url]/about. Another exception to this rule is that a filename starting with a datetime (YYYY-mm-dd or an RFC3339 datetime) followed by an underscore (_) or a dash (-) will use that date as the page date, unless already set in the front matter. The page name will be anything after _/-, so the file 2018-10-10-hello-world.md will be available at [base_url]/hello-world. Note that the full RFC3339 datetime contains colons, which is not a valid character in a filename on Windows.

As you can see, creating an about.md file is equivalent to creating an about/index.md file. The only difference between the two methods is that creating the about directory allows you to use asset co-location, as discussed in the overview section.

Output paths

For any page within your content folder, its output path will be defined by either:

Either way, these proposed path will be sanitized before being used. If slugify_paths is enabled in the site's config - the default - paths are slugified. Otherwise, a simpler sanitation is performed, outputting only valid NTFS paths. The following characters are removed: <, >, :, /, |, ?, *, #, \\, (, ), [, ] as well as newlines and tabulations. Additionally, trailing whitespace and dots are removed and whitespaces are replaced by _.

NOTE: To produce URLs containing non-English characters (UTF8), slugify_paths needs to be set to false.

Path from frontmatter

The output path for the page will first be read from the slug key in the page's frontmatter.

Example: (file content/zines/mlf-kurdistan.md)

+++
title = "Le mouvement des Femmes Libres, à la tête de la libération kurde"
slug = "femmes-libres-libération-kurde"
+++
This is my article.

This frontmatter will output the article to [base_url]/zines/femmes-libres-libération-kurde with slugify_paths disabled, and to [base_url]/zines/femmes-libres-liberation-kurde with slugify_enabled enabled.

Path from filename

When the article's output path is not specified in the frontmatter, it is extracted from the file's path in the content folder. Consider a file content/foo/bar/thing.md. The output path is constructed:

If the path found starts with a datetime string (YYYY-mm-dd or a RFC3339 datetime) followed by an underscore (_) or a dash (-), this date is removed from the output path and will be used as the page date (unless already set in the front-matter). Note that the full RFC3339 datetime contains colons, which is not a valid character in a filename on Windows.

The output path extracted from the file path is then slugified or not depending on the slugify_paths config, as explained previously.

Example: The file content/blog/2018-10-10-hello-world.md will generated a page available at will be available at [base_url]/hello-world.

Front matter

The TOML front matter is a set of metadata embedded in a file at the beginning of the file enclosed by triple pluses (+++).

Although none of the front matter variables are mandatory, the opening and closing +++ are required.

Here is an example page with all the available variables. The values provided below are the default values.

title = ""
description = ""

# The date of the post.
# Two formats are allowed: YYYY-MM-DD (2012-10-02) and RFC3339 (2002-10-02T15:00:00Z).
# Do not wrap dates in quotes; the line below only indicates that there is no default date.
# If the section variable `sort_by` is set to `date`, then any page that lacks a `date`
# will not be rendered.
# Setting this overrides a date set in the filename.
date =

# The weight as defined on the Section page of the documentation.
# If the section variable `sort_by` is set to `weight`, then any page that lacks a `weight`
# will not be rendered.
weight = 0

# A draft page is only loaded if the `--drafts` flag is passed to `zola build`, `zola serve` or `zola check`.
draft = false

# If set, this slug will be instead of the filename to make the URL.
# The section path will still be used.
slug = ""

# The path the content will appear at.
# If set, it cannot be an empty string and will override both `slug` and the filename.
# The sections' path won't be used.
# It should not start with a `/` and the slash will be removed if it does.
path = ""

# Use aliases if you are moving content but want to redirect previous URLs to the
# current one. This takes an array of paths, not URLs.
aliases = []

# When set to "true", the page will be in the search index. This is only used if
# `build_search_index` is set to "true" in the Zola configuration and the parent section
# hasn't set `in_search_index` to "false" in its front matter.
in_search_index = true

# Template to use to render this page.
template = "page.html"

# The taxonomies for this page. The keys need to be the same as the taxonomy
# names configured in `config.toml` and the values are an array of String objects. For example,
# tags = ["rust", "web"].
[taxonomies]

# Your own data.
[extra]

Summary

You can ask Zola to create a summary if, for example, you only want to show the first paragraph of the page content in a list.

To do so, add <!-- more --> in your content at the point where you want the summary to end. The content up to that point will be available separately in the template.

A span element in this position with a continue-reading id is created, so you can link directly to it if needed. For example: <a href="{{ page.permalink }}#continue-reading">Continue Reading</a>.