Mint

Transform your plain text documents into beautiful HTML documents with customizable styling and templates.

Installation

gem install mint

Quick Start

Transform a Markdown document into styled HTML:

mint publish Document.md

This creates Document.html in your current directory with beautiful default styling.

Usage

Basic Commands

# Publish a single document
mint publish Document.md

# Publish with a template
mint publish Document.md --template nord

# Publish to a specific directory
mint publish Document.md --destination public

# Publish multiple files
mint publish *.md --destination final-drafts

# Publish a digital garden, with linked navigation
mint publish content/**/*.md --template garden --destination public

Common Options

Flag	Description
-t, --template TEMPLATE	Use a built-in template (combines layout + style)
-l, --layout LAYOUT	Specify only the layout
-s, --style STYLE	Specify only the style
-d, --destination DIR	Output directory
-o, --output-file FORMAT	Custom output filename format
-m, --style-mode MODE	How styles are included (inline, external, original)
--style-destination PATH	Create external stylesheet and link it (sets mode to external)
-r, --recursive	Find all Markdown files in any directories specified

Style modes

Mint offers three ways to include styles in your HTML output:

• inline (default) – CSS is embedded directly in the HTML document as <style> tags
• external – CSS is compiled and saved as separate files, linked with <link> tags
• original – Links directly to original CSS template files without processing (for live editing)

The original mode is particularly useful for template development, as it allows you to edit CSS files and see changes immediately without republishing. Only .css files are supported in this mode, and @import statements in CSS files will be included as additional <link> tags.

Built-in templates

• default – Clean, minimal styling
• nord – Clean, uses Nord color scheme
• nord-dark – Dark version of Nord
• garden – For digital gardens; includes navigation

Documentation

• Complete usage guide: TUTORIAL.md
• Man page: man mint (after installation)
• API documentation: RubyDoc

Why Mint?

• Focus on writing – Keep documents as plain text
• Version control friendly – Text files work great with Git
• Scriptable – Automate document processing
• Beautiful output – Professional-looking HTML ready for print or web
• Highly customizable – Create your own templates and styles

Templates and customization

Mint supports layouts written in HAML or ERB and stylesheets can be written in CSS, SCSS, or SASS.

Contributing

1. Fork the repository
2. Create a feature branch
3. Make your changes
4. Run the tests: rspec
5. Submit a pull request

License

MIT License. See LICENSE for details.