Theme settings guide
Columnist, setting by setting.
Columnist gives you twenty controls in Ghost Admin — the masthead, paper palette and dark mode, the breaking-news crawl, the homepage layout, post options and the newsletter wording. Much of what makes it a newspaper happens outside those controls, in pages and internal tags, so this guide covers both: what each setting does, and the short recipes that build the front page.
Where the settings live
The twenty settings are in Ghost Admin, in one place:
Settings→Design & branding→Theme settings
Ghost groups them into Site-wide, Homepage and Post — the same three groups used below. The publication logo, accent colour and fonts live one level up, in Ghost's own Brand settings.
Every setting has a sensible default and the front page builds itself from your stories, so the theme never shows an empty block. Treat the settings as refinements rather than a setup checklist.
First hour
Just activated the theme? These steps make it look like the demo. None is required — every page works without them.
- Add your logo. Upload it under Brand. If it needs a different version on dark backgrounds, add a light, transparent one in Dark mode logo. With no logo, the nameplate is your publication title.
- Choose a paper palette — Newsprint, Mist, Stone or Press — and a mid-tone accent colour under Brand.
- Feature five stories. Mark them Featured in post settings: the first becomes the cover story and the rest fill the lead grid.
- Create tags for the main sections of your publication, and give each story a primary tag.
- Create the special pages from the table below, each with its template.
- Set up navigation. Add those pages to Settings → Navigation, using hyphens for dropdowns (see Beyond the settings).
| Page to create | Template to choose |
|---|---|
| Membership | Membership — lists your public tiers with monthly and yearly pricing and benefits |
| Archive | Archive — public tags with story counts, the latest stories and a link to older ones |
| Saved stories | Bookmarks — each reader's browser-local list of saved stories |
| Columnists | Columnists — a directory of your authors by story count |
| A column, such as The Long View | Column — the page slug must match the column's tag |
All twenty settings
Use the search box to jump to a setting — it matches names, descriptions and placements as you type.
Site-wide
Applies across the whole publication.
Auto follows each reader's operating system, switching as they do. Light and Dark force one palette for everyone.
Where it appears: every page.
Readers can still override it: the appearance button in the masthead cycles through system, light and dark, and remembers the choice in their browser. See Reader tools.
Classic centres a large nameplate under a utility bar with the date, tagline and sign-in. Compact uses a slimmer, left-aligned news bar, with the reader and membership controls where the utility bar would be.
Where it appears: the top of every page.
Both styles use the same navigation and collapse into an accessible menu on phones.
The short label beside the Classic nameplate. Keep it under 40 characters, or clear it to hide it.
Where it appears: the right of the nameplate in the Classic masthead.
Shown in the settings panel only when Masthead style is Classic; the Compact masthead uses that space for controls.
The paper and surface palette of the publication: Newsprint (warm cream), Mist, Stone or Press. Each has a coordinated light and dark version.
Where it appears: backgrounds, cards, rules and panels throughout.
Paper style changes surfaces, not your accent colour. See Look and feel.
An alternate publication logo for dark backgrounds, typically a transparent version in a light colour. Your main logo is set in Ghost's own Brand settings.
Where it appears: the masthead, whenever the page is dark.
With no logo at all, the nameplate is the publication title set in the theme's serif, which is how the demo looks.
A crawl above the masthead of the five newest stories carrying the internal tag #breaking. Readers can pause it, or dismiss it until a newer breaking story is published.
Where it appears: the very top of every page, only while at least one #breaking story exists.
Readers who ask their device to reduce motion see the newest headline as a static alert instead. See Newsroom workflows.
The headline of the newsletter signup areas: after stories and above the footer.
Where it appears: the signup panels after articles and the site-wide call to action.
The panels follow the reader: signed-out visitors see a signup, free members see an upgrade prompt when paid tiers exist, and paid members see neither.
The short supporting line beneath the heading.
Where it appears: the same signup areas.
Keep it to a sentence.
The label on the signup button.
Where it appears: the same signup areas.
Keep it short; very long labels are wrapped rather than cut off.
A short editorial note in the footer, beside your navigation.
Where it appears: the footer of every page.
The Published with Ghost credit link stays in the footer.
Homepage
Controls the front page only. Page two onwards is a plain archive and does not use these.
Editorial builds the newspaper front page described in How the homepage builds. List keeps a simple chronological feed.
Where it appears: the front page.
The strapline, featured, latest and opinion settings below apply to the Editorial layout only.
The line above the front-page stories, at the right of the Daily edition rule. Keep it under 80 characters, or clear it to hide it.
Where it appears: the top of the Editorial front page.
The label The daily edition beside it is a translated string, not a setting. See Beyond the settings.
Leads the front page with stories you have marked Featured in the post settings. The first becomes the cover story; up to five fill the lead grid.
Where it appears: the lead grid at the top of the front page.
Without Featured stories, or with this off, the lead grid simply shows your newest stories.
A compact, numbered strip of the five newest stories beneath the lead grid.
Where it appears: beneath the front-page story grid.
It appears only when you have Featured stories; otherwise the front page already shows the newest and the strip would repeat it.
The slug of the public tag that supplies the automatic Opinion section. Clear it to hide the section.
Where it appears: a section of the front page, after the latest dispatches.
Once you publish a #home-section page, the section builder replaces this automatic block. See Homepage sections.
Post
Applies to individual articles.
Feature enlarges the title and the feature image, which suits cover stories and longer reads. Standard is the compact default.
Where it appears: the opening of every article.
The six story formats have their own openings and are not affected. See Story formats.
Sets the first paragraph of each post with an editorial drop cap.
Where it appears: the first paragraph of articles.
Turn it off if your stories often open with a quote, a list or a short line.
A card for the article's author with portrait, name and biography, linking to their page.
Where it appears: the end of every article.
Everything in the card comes from the author's profile under Settings → Staff. Cards without a portrait lose the empty space rather than keeping a gap.
More stories from the article's primary tag.
Where it appears: the end of every article.
The stories come from the article's primary tag, so give each story a primary tag.
Adds text size, saved stories, sharing and print controls to each story, and a thin reading-progress bar at the top of the page.
Where it appears: the toolbar under each story's byline.
Reader tools need JavaScript; the story itself reads fine without it. See Reader tools.
No setting matches that search. Try a shorter word, or clear the box to see all twenty.
Look and feel
Fonts come from the system
Columnist sets headlines in a system serif and everything else in a system sans-serif, so there are no font files to download and nothing extra to list in a privacy policy. To use your own, choose heading and body fonts in Ghost's Brand settings; Ghost then serves them and the theme picks them up.
Accent colour
Pick an accent under Brand, in Settings → Design & branding. Choose a mid-tone: very dark colours disappear on the dark palette, and very light ones fail contrast with white button text. If you leave Ghost's default pink in place, Columnist treats it as not set and shows its own blue. Ghost's sign-up, sign-in and comment windows always use the accent you set in Ghost.
Paper, masthead and dark mode
Four paper palettes each have a coordinated light and dark version, and Color scheme decides which one readers get. Auto is the friendliest choice, since it follows their device and they can override it from the masthead. Long publication names shrink to fit the nameplate on one line, and wrap onto two only when extremely long.
How the homepage builds itself
With the Editorial layout, the front page works from the moment you activate the theme and grows into a curated edition as you add content. Most "something is missing" questions are about this structure, so it is worth reading once.
- The lead grid — up to five stories. The first Featured story is the cover; the rest fill the grid, topped up with your newest stories if you have fewer than five Featured.
- The latest strip — a numbered list of the five newest stories, shown once at least one story is Featured.
- Latest dispatches — the next five stories in a three-column grid, so nothing repeats. It appears once you have more than five stories.
- Opinion — stories carrying the public tag set in Opinion tag slug.
- The topic index — the eight tags with the most stories.
The newsletter call to action closes the page. To build your own sections in place of the automatic Latest dispatches and Opinion, see the next section.
Page two looks different, deliberately
Ghost uses one template for the front page and another for every page after it. Page two onwards is a plain archive of cards, without the lead grid or curated sections.
Homepage sections
For a curated edition, you can create up to twelve sections without editing code. Each is an ordinary Ghost page.
- Create a Page, titled with the section name, for example Politics.
- Give it the same slug as the public tag that supplies its stories, for example politics.
- Add the internal tag #home-section.
- Optionally add one layout tag from the table below.
- Publish it. The publish date sets the order, oldest first.
The page's custom excerpt becomes the short description under the section heading. Once one #home-section page is published, the builder replaces the automatic Latest dispatches and Opinion blocks; the lead grid and topic index remain. A section with no matching published stories hides itself, heading and spacing included.
| Internal tag | Result |
|---|---|
| No layout tag | Three-column story grid |
| #layout-lead | One large lead story with a supporting column |
| #layout-briefing | Numbered, compact briefing list |
| #layout-opinion | Text-led opinion grid with bylines |
| #layout-timeline | Chronological visual timeline |
| #layout-columnists | Author directory; the page slug is ignored |
The section heading links to the public tag page matching the slug, which stays the reader's route to every story in that section. Use only one layout tag per section page.
Story formats and columns
Beyond the standard story, Columnist has six optional post templates. Choose one in a post's settings, under Template.
| Template | Add this internal tag for the card label |
|---|---|
| Opinion | #opinion |
| Interview | #interview |
| Review | #review |
| Photo Essay | #photo-essay |
| Video | #video |
| Live | #live |
The template controls the story page; the internal tag adds the matching label to homepage and archive cards. Internal tags never appear in your public topic list. The Live template also shows when the story was last updated.
Writing for each format
- Opinion is for a distinct author voice, not reported analysis.
- Interview: start each question with bold text for the built-in Q&A treatment.
- Photo essay: build it from wide and full-width image or gallery cards.
- Video: put the video card first.
- Live: edit the same story as events develop; Ghost's updated time is shown automatically.
Columns and the columnists directory
A column is a public tag plus a page with the same slug and the Column template. A page titled The Long View with the slug the-long-view lists every story tagged the-long-view, and its feature image becomes the column's artwork. A page with the Columnists template lists your authors by story count with portraits, biographies and archive links. Author cover images get a dedicated treatment on each author's page.
Newsroom workflows
- Breaking news. Add the internal tag #breaking to an urgent story. The five newest run in a continuous newswire above the masthead, and the latest controls the alert. Readers can pause it with the visible control, or temporarily by hovering or focusing a link, and can dismiss it.
- Format badges. Specialist stories carry a badge, such as Live or Photo essay, on cards across the site.
- Live stories. The Live template shows the last-updated time next to the byline.
Members, newsletter and sponsors
- Signup and upgrade panels use Ghost's own member flows. Signed-out visitors see a signup after the story, free members see an upgrade prompt when paid membership is on, and paid members see neither.
- The membership page lists only paid tiers set to public in Portal. The theme does not create tiers, connect Stripe or send email; set those up and test them in Ghost before you advertise paid subscriptions.
- Native comments appear under stories once enabled in Ghost, and search uses Ghost's built-in search from the magnifying glass.
Sponsor placements
Publish a Ghost page with one of these slugs to switch the placement on. The page content is the creative, so editors can use images, buttons and text without touching templates. Return it to draft to switch it off.
| Page slug | Placement |
|---|---|
| sponsor-home | Between the homepage lead and the curated sections |
| sponsor-post | Between the story and the author and topic footer |
| sponsor-footer | Above the site-wide newsletter call to action |
Keep sponsor copy short and clearly labelled, add rel="sponsored" to sponsor links in the HTML view where appropriate, and follow the disclosure rules that apply where you publish. Hide the pages from navigation and search engines in their page settings if they exist only as placements.
Reader tools
With Show reader tools on, every story has controls for text size, saved stories, printing and sharing, and a thin reading-progress bar runs across the top of the page.
- Appearance. The masthead button cycles system, light and dark. The choice is stored in the reader's browser and applied before the page paints, so there is no flash.
- Saved stories. Readers can save up to 100 stories locally. Create a page with the Bookmarks template and add it to navigation. Saved stories stay in that browser and never sync or reach your server.
- Text size. Small, default and large apply to the story text, not the interface.
- Print. The print stylesheet drops navigation, comments, calls to action and sponsor placements, and keeps the story, byline and essential images.
- Share. Uses the device's native share sheet, or copies the link where that is unavailable.
These tools need JavaScript, as do Ghost's search, Portal and comments. Stories and ordinary navigation stay readable without it. If a browser blocks storage, the story still reads normally but preferences and saved stories cannot persist.
Beyond the settings
Add dropdown menus to the navigation
Start a navigation label with a hyphen to make it a child of the item above. Add Sections, then - Politics, - Culture and - Technology, then About, and the three hyphenated items become a dropdown under Sections. Mouse users hover; the arrow beside the parent opens it on touch screens and with Enter or Space, and Escape closes it. The parent stays a normal link, and the footer lists the same links flat.
Change a label such as "The daily edition"
Interface labels are translated strings in the theme's locales/en.json, not settings. Edit the text there and re-upload the theme. Keep a note of the change, since a theme update will overwrite it.
Use different fonts
Set heading and body fonts in Ghost's Brand settings; the theme uses them in place of the system stacks. Ghost serves the font files, so this adds a font request that the default theme does not make.
Small style changes that survive updates
Put CSS overrides in Settings → Code injection → Site header rather than editing screen.css. Injected CSS survives theme updates; direct edits do not.
Try the layouts with the demo edition
The download includes a generator for the fictional demo edition — thirty stories, six writers and six homepage sections — and a guide to importing it. Use it on a fresh or staging site to see every layout populated, then delete the content before you publish.
Troubleshooting
A homepage section is missing
A section needs a published page carrying #home-section, with the same slug as a public tag, and at least one published story with that tag. A section with nothing to show hides itself completely. A columnists section needs authors with published stories.
The Latest strip is missing
It appears only when you have Featured stories and Show latest sidebar is on. Without Featured stories the front page already shows your newest, so the strip would repeat it.
My Opinion section disappeared
Once any #home-section page is published, the section builder replaces the automatic Latest dispatches and Opinion blocks. Add an Opinion section page of your own with the #layout-opinion tag, or unpublish the section pages to return to the automatic front page.
The breaking-news bar is not showing
Check that Show breaking news is on and that a story carries the internal tag #breaking. A reader who dismissed the bar sees it again when a newer breaking story is published. Devices set to reduce motion show a static headline instead of a crawl.
A card does not show its format label
The post template controls the story page, but the label on homepage and archive cards comes from the matching internal tag, such as #opinion or #live. Add both.
A sponsor placement does not appear
The page slug must be exactly sponsor-home, sponsor-post or sponsor-footer, and the page must be published. A draft renders nothing.
My navigation dropdown shows hyphens or is flat
A child item is a navigation label that begins with a hyphen and sits directly after its parent. Check the order and that there is a hyphen then a space, as in - Politics. Without JavaScript the items show as ordinary links.
My accent colour is blue and I did not choose it
Ghost's default pink is treated as not set, because it fails contrast with white text, so Columnist shows its own blue. Choose any other colour under Settings → Design & branding → Brand and it is used throughout.
The Subscribe button and signup panels are missing
They need members enabled in Ghost, under Settings → Membership. Paid members never see signup or upgrade panels, and free members see an upgrade prompt only when paid membership is enabled.
I cannot find the theme settings panel
Columnist must be the active theme, not merely uploaded. Activate it under Settings → Design & branding → Change theme, then reload Ghost Admin. Custom themes also require Ghost(Pro) Publisher or higher, or a self-hosted install.
Still stuck?
Email [email protected] with your Ghost version, the Columnist version, the page URL, your browser and a screenshot. I aim to reply within two business days, and support covers installation, documented settings and confirmed defects.
For installation, updates and licensing, see the main documentation. For release notes, see the changelog.