Evergreen documentation

Installation

1. Download evergreen.zip from your purchase email or your purchases library. Do not unzip it.
2. In Ghost Admin, open Settings → Design & branding → Change theme.
3. Click Upload theme, select the zip, then Activate.

Evergreen requires Ghost 6 (self-hosted, or a Ghost(Pro) plan that allows custom themes).

Updating

Upload the new zip the same way and confirm the overwrite. Your content, navigation and theme settings are kept.

Import the demo content

The download includes evergreen-demo.zip: posts, pages, tags, navigation and images.

1. Use a new or empty site: importing over existing content creates duplicates. On a fresh Ghost, first delete the default content in Settings → Advanced → Danger zone → Delete all content.
2. Open Settings → Advanced → Import/Export and import the zip (not just the JSON, or the images will be missing).
3. Theme settings are not part of an import: set them in Design & branding (see the table below).

Homepage sections

Section	Content comes from
Hero	The publication cover (Design & branding → Brand), or the latest Featured image, with Hero statement and the site description. Add the photo credit in Hero credit.
Featured panel	The latest post marked Featured, overlapping the photo.
Journal	The 4 latest posts of Journal tag, in four alternating compositions along a timeline.
Places	The 3 latest posts of Places tag: one tall photo and two stacked. The post already in the featured panel is skipped.
People	Three portraits from People tag. The post title is the person’s name; write the excerpt as Role — quote.
Ideas	The 4 latest essays of Ideas tag, text only.

Each section hides itself when its tag does not exist or is empty. Above titles, the theme shows the first public tag that is not the section’s own tag: give each post a secondary tag (a country, a theme).

Photography page

The tag whose slug is set in Photography tag (default photography) is shown as a photo mosaic; every other tag keeps the timeline. The tag’s name is free.

Appearance

Cream (default), Forest night or Auto. The header is transparent over opening photos: a light logo, or the text title, reads best. Fonts: Libre Caslon Display, Libre Caslon Text and Jost.

All settings

Setting	Tab	Default	What it does
Color scheme	Site-wide	Light	Default color scheme: Light (cream) or Dark (forest night). Readers can switch.
Photography tag	Site-wide	photography	Slug of the tag whose page is shown as a photo mosaic (e.g. photography)
Other social links	Site-wide	—	Extra social profile URLs, comma-separated (Pinterest, WhatsApp, GitHub...)
Show newsletter	Site-wide	On	Subscription band (forest green) at the bottom of every page
Newsletter heading	Site-wide	Letters from a slower life	Heading of the subscription band
Newsletter text	Site-wide	One story, one place and one thing worth making, delivered twice a month. Nothing more.	Text of the subscription band
Show hero	Homepage	On	Full-width photo (publication cover, or latest Featured image) with a statement
Hero statement	Homepage	Stories for a slower life.	Large statement over the hero photo
Hero credit	Homepage	—	Credit of the hero photo, e.g. Photo by Jane Doe / Unsplash
Show featured panel	Homepage	On	Panel with the latest post marked as Featured, over the hero's bottom edge
Show journal	Homepage	On	Journal: four latest posts of a tag, in four compositions along a timeline
Journal tag	Homepage	journal	Slug of the journal tag (empty = latest posts of any tag)
Show places	Homepage	On	Places: three latest posts of a tag, one tall photo and two stacked
Places tag	Homepage	places	Slug of the places tag
Show people	Homepage	On	People: three portraits. Excerpt format: Role — quote
People tag	Homepage	people	Slug of the people tag
Show ideas	Homepage	On	Ideas: four latest essays of a tag, text only, on a sage band
Ideas tag	Homepage	ideas	Slug of the ideas tag
Table of contents	Post	On	Show a table of contents on posts with three or more headings

Posts per page: 8 (set by the theme). Settings are in Settings → Design & branding → Customize, in the Site-wide, Homepage and Post tabs.

Navigation & social links

• Dropdowns: in Settings → Navigation, start a label with a dash (-About) to put it in a dropdown under the item above. That parent item only opens the dropdown; its URL is not used.
• Social accounts: X, Facebook, LinkedIn, Bluesky, Threads, Mastodon, TikTok, YouTube and Instagram come from Settings → General → Social accounts. Add any other profile in the Other social links setting (comma-separated URLs): Pinterest, WhatsApp, Telegram, Discord, GitHub, Dribbble, Behance, Spotify, Twitch, Snapchat, Reddit and Medium get their icon, any other URL gets a link icon.
• The RSS icon is added automatically.

Posts & pages

• Table of contents: added automatically to posts with three or more H2 headings (setting Table of contents).
• Full width page template: choose it in the page settings for landing pages.
• The page option Show title and feature image is respected.
• Every editor card is styled, including wide and full-width images, galleries, toggles, callouts, buttons and bookmarks.

Members & newsletter

The subscription block uses Ghost’s native members. It is hidden for signed-in members, and when sign-ups are off or invite-only (Settings → Membership).

Translation

Every text of the theme goes through Ghost’s translation system. Copy locales/en.json inside the theme to locales/fr.json (or your language code), translate the values, zip the theme again and upload it. Then set the language in Settings → General → Publication language.

FAQ

My logo is hard to read on the homepage photo.

The header is transparent over the photo: use a light version of your logo, or remove it to show the site title.

A section of the homepage does not appear.

Check its switch in Design & branding, then its content: every section hides itself when it has nothing to show (no Featured post, no post with the internal tag, an empty tag…).

Can I change the fonts?

Yes: the fonts chosen in Design & branding → Typography replace the theme’s heading and body fonts.