Asciidoctor PDF Theming Guide

The theming system is used to control the style of a PDF file generated by Asciidoctor PDF from AsciiDoc. This document describes how the theming system works, how to define a custom theme in YAML, and how to activate the theme when running Asciidoctor PDF.

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The quickest way to create your own theme is to extend the default theme. This gives you a set of foundation styles to build on and provides a collection of bundled fonts (which you don’t have to redeclare). If you want to use your own fonts, you must declare the name and location of each font in the font catalog. If you want to combine your own fonts with the bundled fonts, you can either extend the font catalog (by setting merge: true) or redeclare the bundled fonts alongside your own.

⚠️	If the theme doesn’t specify any fonts (nor are they being inherited), only the built-in (AFM) fonts provided by the PDF reader will be available. Using AFM fonts can result in missing functionality and warnings. See the Built-In (AFM) Fonts section to learn more about these limitations.

Language Overview
Values
Fonts
Keys
- Extends
- Font
- Role
- Cover
- Page
- Base
- Vertical Spacing
- Link
- (Inline) Literal
- Heading
- Section
- Title Page
- Prose
- Block
- Caption
- Code
- Callout Numbers
- Button
- Key
- Menu
- Mark
- Blockquote
- Verse
- Sidebar
- Example
- Admonition
- Image
- SVG
- Lead
- Abstract
- Thematic Break
- Description List
- Outline List
- Unordered List
- Table
- Index
- Footnotes
- Table of Contents (TOC)
- Running Content (Header & Footer)
Applying Your Theme
Theme-Related Document Attributes
Page Numbering
Printing Mode (print)
Publishing Mode (prepress)
- Double-Sided Page Margins
- Automatic Facing Pages
Source Highlighting Theme
- Using a Highlighting Theme
- Custom Highlighting Theme
Extending the Converter
Appendix A: Preparing a Custom Font

Language Overview

The Asciidoctor PDF theme language is described using the YAML data format and incorporates many concepts from CSS and SASS. Therefore, if you have a background in web design, the terminology should be immediately familiar to you. Note, however, that the theming system isn’t actually CSS.

The theme can generally influence PDF settings, page numbering, font properties, background and borders, character selections, spacings, and running content. It has limited influence over the layout of elements on the page. If your theming requirements demand more than what this theming system can accomodate, you can extend the converter to gain more control over the layout and style.

The theme file must be named <name>-theme.yml, where <name> is the name of the theme. We recommend not using the names base or default so you don’t confuse it with one of the built-in themes.

Selectors and Properties

Like CSS, themes have both selectors and properties. Selectors are the component you want to style. The properties are the style elements of that component that can be styled. All selector names are implicit (e.g., heading), so you customize the theme primarily by manipulating pre-defined property values (e.g., font-size).

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The theme language in Asciidoctor PDF supports a limited subset of the properties from CSS. Some of these properties have different names from those found in CSS.

An underscore (_) may be used in place of a hyphen (-) in all property names (so you may use font_family or font-family).
An underscore (_) may be used in place of a hyphen (-) in all variable names (so you may use $base_font_family or $base-font-family).
Instead of separate properties for font weight and font style, the theme language combines these settings in the font-style property (allowed values: normal, bold, italic, and bold_italic).
The align property in the theme language is roughly equivalent to the text-align property in CSS.
The font-color property in the theme language is equivalent to the color property in CSS.

A theme is described in a YAML-based data format and stored in a dedicated theme file. YAML is a human-friendly data format that resembles CSS and helps to describe the theme. The theme language adds some extra features to YAML, such as variables, basic math, measurements, and color values. These enhancements will be explained in detail in later sections.

Basic Theme

Here’s an example of a basic theme file that extends the base theme:

basic-theme.yml

extends: base
page:
  layout: portrait
  margin: [0.75in, 1in, 0.75in, 1in]
  size: Letter
base:
  font-color: #333333
  font-family: Times-Roman
  font-size: 12
  line-height-length: 17
  line-height: $base-line-height-length / $base-font-size
vertical-spacing: $base-line-height-length
heading:
  font-color: #262626
  font-size: 17
  font-style: bold
  line-height: 1.2
  margin-bottom: $vertical-spacing
link:
  font-color: #002FA7
outline-list:
  indent: $base-font-size * 1.5
footer:
  height: $base-line-height-length * 2.5
  line-height: 1
  recto:
    right:
      content: '{page-number}'
  verso:
    left:
      content: $footer-recto-right-content

When creating a new theme, you only have to define the keys you want to override from the extended theme, which is loaded prior to loading your custom theme. All the available keys are documented in Keys. The converter uses the information from the theme map to help construct the PDF.

Basic Extended Theme

Instead of designing a theme from scratch, you can extend the default theme using the extends key as follows:

extends: default
base:
  font-color: #ff0000

You can also point the extends key at another custom theme to extend from it. If you don’t want to extend any theme, including the base theme, omit the extends key or assign the value ~ to the extends key (i.e., extends: ~).

If the same theme appears multiple times in the theme hierarchy, it will only be loaded once by default. You can force the theme to be loaded, even if it has already been loaded, by adding the !important keyword at the end of the value offset by a space.

⚠️	If you start a new theme from scratch, we strongly recommend defining TrueType fonts and specifying them in the `base` and `literal` categories. Otherwise, Asciidoctor PDF will use built-in AFM fonts, which can result in missing functionality and warnings.

💡

Instead of creating a theme from scratch, another option is to download the default-theme.yml file from the source repository. Save the file using a unique name (e.g., custom-theme.yml) and start hacking on it.

Alternatively, you can snag the file from your local installation using the following command:

$ ASCIIDOCTOR_PDF_DIR=`gem contents asciidoctor-pdf --show-install-dir`;\
  cp "$ASCIIDOCTOR_PDF_DIR/data/themes/default-theme.yml" custom-theme.yml

Key Nesting

Keys may be nested to an arbitrary depth to eliminate redundant prefixes (an approach inspired by SASS). Once the theme is loaded, all keys are flattened into a single map of qualified keys. Nesting is simply a shorthand way of organizing the keys. In the end, a theme is just a map of key/value pairs.

Nested keys are adjoined to their parent key with an underscore (_) or hyphen (-). This means the selector part (e.g., link) is combined with the property name (e.g., font-color) into a single, qualified key (e.g., link_font_color or link-font-color).

For example, let’s assume we want to set the base (i.e., global) font size and color. These keys may be written longhand:

base-font-color: #333333
base-font-family: Times-Roman
base-font-size: 12

Or, to avoid having to type the prefix base- multiple times, the keys may be written as a hierarchy:

base:
  font-color: #333333
  font-family: Times-Roman
  font-size: 12

Or even:

base:
  font:
    color: #333333
    family: Times-Roman
    size: 12

Each level of nesting must be indented by two spaces from the indentation of the parent level. Also note the presence of the colon (:) after each key name.

Values

The value of a key may be one of the following types:

String
- Font family name (e.g., Roboto)
- Font style (normal, bold, italic, bold_italic)
- Alignment (left, center, right, justify)
- Color as hex string (e.g., 'ff0000', #ff0000, or '#ff0000')
- Image path
- Enumerated type (where specified)
- Text content (where specified)
Null (clears any previously assigned value)
- empty (i.e., no value specified)
- null
- ~
Number (integer or float) with optional units (default unit is points)
Array
- Color as RGB array (e.g., [51, 51, 51])
- Color CMYK array (e.g., [50, 100, 0, 0])
- Margin (e.g., [1in, 1in, 1in, 1in])
- Padding (e.g., [1in, 1in, 1in, 1in])
Variable reference (e.g., $base_font_color or $base-font-color)
Math expression

Note that keys almost always require a value of a specific type, as documented in Keys.

Inheritance

Like CSS, inheritance is a principle feature in the Asciidoctor PDF theme language. For many of the properties, if a key is not specified, the key inherits the value applied to the parent content in the content hierarchy. This behavior saves you from having to specify properties unless you want to override the inherited value.

The following keys are inherited:

font-family
font-color
font-size
font-style
text-transform
line-height (currently some exceptions)
margin-bottom (if not specified, defaults to $vertical-spacing)

Heading Inheritance

Headings inherit starting from a specific heading level (e.g., heading-h2-font-size), then to the heading category (e.g., heading-font-size), then directly to the base value (e.g., base-font-size). Any setting from an enclosing context, such as a sidebar, is skipped.

Variables

To save you from having to type the same value in your theme over and over, or to allow you to base one value on another, the theme language supports variables. Variables consist of the key name preceded by a dollar sign ($) (e.g., $base-font-size). Any qualified key that has already been defined can be referenced in the value of another key. (In order words, as soon as the key is assigned, it’s available to be used as a variable).

❗	Variables are defined from top to bottom (i.e., in document order). Therefore, a variable must be defined before it is referenced. In other words, the path the variable refers to must be above the usage of that variable.

For example, once the following line is processed,

base:
  font-color: #333333

the variable $base-font-color will be available for use in subsequent lines and will resolve to #333333.

Let’s say you want to make the font color of the sidebar title the same as the heading font color. Just assign the value $heading-font-color to the $sidebar-title-font-color.

heading:
  font-color: #191919
sidebar:
  title:
    font-color: $heading-font-color

You can also use variables in math expressions to use one value to build another. This is commonly done to set font sizes proportionally. It also makes it easy to test different values very quickly.

base:
  font-size: 12
  font-size-large: $base-font-size * 1.25
  font-size-small: $base-font-size * 0.85

We’ll cover more about math expressions later.

Custom Variables

You can define arbitrary key names to make custom variables. This is one way to group reusable values at the top of your theme file. If you are going to do this, it’s recommended that you organize the keys under a custom namespace, such as brand.

For instance, here’s how you can define your brand colors:

brand:
  primary-color: #E0162B # # (1)
  secondary-color: '#FFFFFF' # # (2)
  alert-color: '0052A5' # # (3)

To align with CSS, you may add # in front of the hex color value to coerce it to a string. A YAML preprocessor is used to ensure the value is not treated as a comment as would normally be the case in YAML.
You may put quotes around the CSS-style hex value to make it friendly to a YAML editor or validation tool.
The leading # on a hex value is entirely optional. However, we recommend that you always use either a leading # or surrounding quotes (or both) to prevent YAML from mangling the value (for example, 000000 would become 0, so use '000000' or #000000 instead).

You can now use these custom variables later in the theme file:

base:
  font-color: $brand-primary-color

Math Expressions & Functions

The theme language supports basic math operations to support calculated values. Like programming languages, the multiply and divide operators take precedence over the add and subtract operators.

The following table lists the supported operations and the corresponding operator for each.

Operation	Operator
multiply	*
divide	/
add	+
subtract	-

❗	Operators must always be surrounded by a space on either side (e.g., 2 + 2, not 2+2).

Here’s an example of a math expression with fixed values.

conum:
  line-height: 4 / 3

Variables may be used in place of numbers anywhere in the expression:

base:
  font-size: 12
  font-size-large: $base-font-size * 1.25

Values used in a math expression are automatically coerced to a float value before the operation. If the result of the expression is an integer, the value is coerced to an integer afterwards.

❗	Numeric values less than 1 must have a 0 before the decimal point (e.g., 0.85).

The theme language also supports several functions for rounding the result of a math expression. The following functions may be used if they surround the whole value or expression for a key.

round(…): Rounds the number to the nearest half integer.
floor(…): Rounds the number up to the next integer.
ceil(…): Rounds the number down the previous integer.

You might use these functions in font size calculations so that you get more exact values.

base:
  font-size: 12.5
  font-size-large: ceil($base-font-size * 1.25)

Measurement Units

Several of the keys require a value in points (pt), the unit of measure for the PDF canvas. A point is defined as 1/72 of an inch. If you specify a number without any units, the units defaults to pt.

However, us humans like to think in real world units like inches (in), centimeters (cm), or millimeters (mm). You can let the theme do this conversion for you automatically by adding a unit notation next to any number.

The following units are supported:

Unit	Suffix
Centimeter	cm
Inches	in
Millimeter	mm
Percentage^[1]	%, vw, or vh
Points	pt (default)

A percentage with the % unit is calculated relative to the width or height of the content area. Viewport-relative percentages (vw or vh units) are calculated as a percentage of the page width or height, respectively. Currently, percentage units can only be used for placing elements on the title page or for setting the width of a block image.

Here’s an example of how you can use inches to define the page margins:

page:
  margin: [0.75in, 1in, 0.75in, 1in]

The order of elements in a measurement array is the same as it is in CSS:

top
right
bottom
left

Alignments

The align subkey is used to align text and images within the parent container.

Text Alignments

Text can be aligned as follows:

left
center
right
justify (stretched to each edge)

Text Decorations

The following decorations can be applied to text:

none (no decoration)
underline
line-through

Image Alignments

Images can be aligned as follows:

left
center
right

Font Styles

In most cases, wherever you can specify a custom font family, you can also specify a font style. These two settings are combined to locate the font to use.

The following font styles are recognized:

normal (no style)
italic
bold
bold_italic

Text Transforms

Many places where font properties can be specified, a case transformation can be applied to the text. The following transforms are recognized:

uppercase
lowercase
capitalize (each word, like CSS)
none (clears an inherited value)

🔥	Ruby 2.5 and better has built-in support for transforming the case of any letter defined by Unicode. You no longer need the `activesupport` or `unicode` gem to transform characters beyond the Basic Latin character set (e.g., accented characters).

Colors

The theme language supports color values in three formats:

Hex: A string of 3 or 6 characters with an optional leading #, optional surrounding quotes, or both.
RGB: An array of numeric values ranging from 0 to 255.
CMYK: An array of numeric values ranging from 0 to 1 or from 0% to 100%.
Transparent: The special value transparent indicates that a color should not be used.

Hex

The hex color value is likely most familiar to web developers. The value must be either 3 or 6 characters (case insensitive) with an optional leading hash (#), optional surrounding quotes, or both.

To align with CSS, you may add a # in front of the hex color value. A YAML preprocessor is used to ensure the value is not treated as a comment as would normally be the case in YAML. That same preprocessor will also coerce a primitive value to a string if color is the name of the last segment in the key (e.g., font-color). This avoids the problem of 000 becoming 0 (and similar implicit conversions) when the theme file is parsed.

You also may put quotes around the CSS-style hex value to make it friendly to a YAML editor or validation tool. In this case, the leading # on a hex value is entirely optional.

Regardless, we recommend that you always use either a leading # or surrounding quotes (or both) to prevent YAML from mangling the value.

The following are all equivalent values for the color red:

#ff0000

#FF0000

'ff0000'

'FF0000'

#f00

#F00

'f00'

'F00'

Here’s how a hex color value appears in the theme file:

base:
  font-color: #ff0000

RGB

An RGB array value must be three numbers ranging from 0 to 255. The values must be separated by commas and be surrounded by square brackets.

📎	An RGB array is automatically converted to a hex string internally, so there’s no difference between ff0000 and [255, 0, 0].

Here’s how to specify the color red in RGB:

[255, 0, 0]

Here’s how a RGB color value appears in the theme file:

base:
  font-color: [255, 0, 0]

CMYK

A CMYK array value must be four numbers ranging from 0 and 1 or from 0% to 100%. The values must be separated by commas and be surrounded by square brackets.

Unlike the RGB array, the CMYK array is not converted to a hex string internally. PDF has native support for CMYK colors, so you can preserve the original color values in the final PDF.

Here’s how to specify the color red in CMYK:

[0, 0.99, 1, 0]
[0, 99%, 100%, 0]

Here’s how a CMYK color value appears in the theme file:

base:
  font-color: [0, 0.99, 1, 0]

Transparent

It’s possible to specify no color by assigning the special value transparent, as shown here:

table:
  background-color: transparent

The transparent keyword can be used for the background or border color, but not the font color.

Images

An image is specified either as a bare image path or as an inline image macro as found in the AsciiDoc syntax. Images in the theme file are currently resolved relative to the value of the pdf-themesdir attribute. (If pdf-theme is a path that ends in .yml, and pdf-themesdir is not set, then the images are resolved relative to the directory of the path specified by pdf-theme). If you want to use an image in your theme that’s relative to the document you’re converting, you can prefix the target with the {docdir} attribute reference.

The following image types (and corresponding file extensions) are supported:

PNG (.png)
JPEG (.jpg)
SVG (.svg)

🔥	The GIF format (.gif) and BMP format (.bmp) are not supported unless you’re using prawn-gmagick. See support for additional image file formats for details.

Here’s how an image is specified in the theme file as a bare image path:

title-page:
  background-image: title-cover.png

Here’s how the image is specified using the inline image macro:

title-page:
  background-image: image:title-cover.png[]

In either case, the image is resolved relative to the value of the pdf-themesdir attribute, as previously described. If you want to instead reference an image relative to the document you’re converting, then prefix the target with the {docdir} attribute reference.

title-page:
  background-image: image:{docdir}/images/title-cover.png[]

Like in the AsciiDoc syntax, wrapping the value in the image macro allows you to specify other settings, such as pdfwidth, fit, and/or align. For example:

title-page:
  logo-image: image:logo.png[width=250,align=center]

Quoted String

Some of the keys accept a quoted string as text content. The final segment of these keys is always named content.

A content key accepts a string value. It’s usually best to quote the string or use the YAML multi-line string syntax.

Text content may be formatted using a subset of inline HTML. You can use the well-known elements such as , , <code>, <a>, , , <del>, and . The  element supports the style attribute, which you can use to specify the color, font-weight, and font-style CSS properties. You can also use the rgb attribute on the <color> element to change the color or the name and size attributes on the  element to change the font properties. If you need to add an underline or strikethrough decoration to the text, you can assign the underline or line-through to the class attribute on any aforementioned element.

Here’s an example of using formatting in the content of the menu caret:

menu-caret-content: " <font size=\"1.15em\"><color rgb=\"#b12146\">\u203a</color></font> "

📎	The string must be double quoted in order to use a Unicode escape code like `\u203a`.

Additionally, normal substitutions are applied to the value of content keys for running content, so you can use most AsciiDoc inline formatting (e.g., *strong* or {attribute-name}) in the values of those keys.

Fonts

You can select from built-in PDF fonts, fonts bundled with Asciidoctor PDF or custom fonts loaded from TrueType (TTF) or OpenType (OTF) font files. If you want to use custom fonts, you must first declare them in your theme file.

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Asciidoctor has no challenge working with Unicode. In fact, it prefers Unicode and considers the entire range. However, once you convert to PDF, you have to meet the font requirements of PDF in order to preserve Unicode characters. That means you need to provide a font (at least a fallback font) that contains glyphs for all the characters you want to use. If you don’t, you may notice that characters are missing (usually replaced with a box). There’s nothing Asciidoctor can do to convince PDF to work with extended characters without the right fonts in play. To see which characters are missing from the font, enable verbose mode (-v) when running Asciidoctor PDF.

Built-In (AFM) Fonts

The names of the built-in fonts (for general-purpose text) are as follows:

Font Name	Font Family
Helvetica	sans-serif
Times-Roman	serif
Courier	monospace

Using a built-in font requires no additional files. You can use the key anywhere a font-family property is accepted in the theme file. For example:

base:
  font-family: Times-Roman

However, when you use a built-in font, the characters you can use in your document are limited to the characters in the WINANSI (Windows-1252) code set. WINANSI includes most of the characters needed for writing in Western languages (English, French, Spanish, etc). For anything outside of that, PDF is BYOF (Bring Your Own Font).

Even though the built-in fonts require the content to be encoded in WINANSI, you still type your AsciiDoc document in UTF-8. Asciidoctor PDF encodes the content into WINANSI when building the PDF.

⚠️	Built-in (AFM) fonts do not use the fallback fonts. In order for the fallback font to kick in, you must use a TrueType font anywhere you want the fallback font to be used (e.g., the base font family, the code font family, etc).

WINANSI Encoding Behavior

When using the built-in PDF (AFM) fonts on a block of content in your AsciiDoc document, any character that cannot be encoded to WINANSI is replaced with a logic “not” glyph (¬) and you’ll see the following warning in your console:

The following text could not be fully converted to the Windows-1252 character set:
| <string with unknown glyph>

This behavior differs from the default behavior in Prawn, which is to simply crash.

You’ll often see this warning if you’re using callouts in your document and you haven’t specified a TrueType font in your theme. To prevent this warning, you need to specify a TrueType font.

When using a TrueType font, you will get no warning for a missing glyph. That’s a consequence of how Prawn works and is outside of Asciidoctor PDF’s control. However, you’ll likely see it substituted with a box (guaranteed if you’re using one of the bundled fonts).

For more information about how Prawn handles character encodings for built-in fonts, see this note in the Prawn CHANGELOG.

Bundled Fonts

Asciidoctor PDF bundles several fonts that are used by the default theme. You can also use these fonts in your custom theme by simply declaring them. These fonts provide more characters than the built-in PDF fonts, but still only a subset of UTF-8 (to reduce the size of the gem).

The family name of the fonts bundled with Asciidoctor PDF are as follows:

Noto Serif: A serif font that can be styled as normal, italic, bold or bold_italic.
M+ 1mn: A monospaced font that maps different thicknesses to the styles normal, italic, bold, and bold_italic. Also provides the circuled numbers used in callouts.
M+ 1p Fallback: A sans-serif font that provides a very complete set of Unicode glyphs. Cannot be styled as italic, bold or bold_italic. Used as the fallback font in the default-with-fallback-font theme.

💡

If you want to specify the location of custom fonts using the pdf-fontsdir attribute, yet still be able to reference the bundled fonts, you need to refer to the bundled fonts using the GEM_FONTS_DIR token. To do so, you can either a) prefix the path of the bundled font in the theme file with the segment GEM_FONTS_DIR (e.g., GEM_FONTS_DIR/mplus1p-regular-fallback.ttf, or b) use relative paths in the theme file and include GEM_FONT_DIR in the value of the pdf-fontsdir attribute separated by the location of your custom fonts using a comma (e.g., path/to/your/fonts,GEM_FONTS_DIR) or a semi-colon (e.g., path/to/your/fonts;GEM_FONTS_DIR).

Custom Fonts

The limited character set of WINANSI, or the plain look of the built-in or bundled fonts, may motivate you to incorporate your own fonts. Custom fonts can enhance the look of your PDF theme substantially.

❗	In order for a third-party font to work properly with Prawn (and hence Asciidoctor PDF), several modifications are required. See Preparing a Custom Font to learn how to prepare your font for use with Asciidoctor PDF.

Selecting Your Font

To start, find the TTF file collection for the font you want to use. A collection typically consists of four font styles:

normal
italic
bold
bold_italic

You’ll need all four variants to support AsciiDoc content properly (unless the font only has a single variant). If you do not register the font correctly, the converter may crash or revert to the fallback font, depending on how the theme is configured. If one of the variants is missing from your collection, you can simply reuse the normal / single variant in its place.

⚠️	Asciidoctor PDF cannot italicize a font dynamically like a browser can, so the italic styles are required to italicize text.

Once you’ve obtained the TTF (or OTF) files, put them in the directory inside your project where you want to store the fonts. It’s recommended that you name them consistently so it’s easier to type the names in the theme file.

Let’s assume the name of the font is Roboto. Rename the files as follows:

roboto-normal.ttf (originally Roboto-Regular.ttf)
roboto-italic.ttf (originally Roboto-Italic.ttf)
roboto-bold.ttf (originally Roboto-Bold.ttf)
roboto-bold_italic.ttf (originally Roboto-BoldItalic.ttf)

Declaring Your Font

Next, declare the font under the font-catalog key at the top of your theme file. Assign each font a unique key (e.g., Roboto) and specify the path to each of the four font styles under that key.

font:
  catalog:
    merge: false # set value to true to merge catalog with theme you're extending
    Roboto:
      normal: roboto-normal.ttf
      italic: roboto-italic.ttf
      bold: roboto-bold.ttf
      bold_italic: roboto-bold_italic.ttf

If you use this form, you must declare all four variants. If you’re missing the font file for one of the variants, configure it to use the same font file as the normal variant.

If your font only has a single variant, assign the font path to the font key directly.

font:
  catalog:
    merge: false # set value to true to merge catalog with theme you're extending
    VLGothic: vlgothic.ttf

Font paths can be absolute or relative. Absolute paths are used as is. Relative font paths are resolved from the font search path. You can also use the GEM_FONTS_DIR keyword to refer to the location of the bundled fonts.

You can add any number of fonts to the catalog. Each font must be assigned a unique key, as shown here:

font:
  catalog:
    merge: false # set value to true to merge catalog with theme you're extending
    Roboto:
      normal: roboto-normal.ttf
      italic: roboto-italic.ttf
      bold: roboto-bold.ttf
      bold_italic: roboto-bold_italic.ttf
    Roboto Light:
      normal: roboto-light-normal.ttf
      italic: roboto-light-italic.ttf
      bold: roboto-light-bold.ttf
      bold_italic: roboto-light-bold_italic.ttf

You can use the key that you assign to the font in the font catalog anywhere the font-family property is accepted in the theme file. For example, to use the Roboto font for all headings (section titles and discrete headings), use:

heading:
  font-family: Roboto
  font-style: bold

The font name and font style are used to locate an entry in the font catalog.

About Fonts in SVGs

Fonts defined for text in SVGs will be mapped to the font catalog from your theme. So if you have an SVG that requires a specific font, you’ll need to declare that font in the font catalog in your theme.

We recommend that you match the font key in your theme file to the name of the font seen by the operating system. This will allow you to use the same font names (aka families) in both your graphics program and Asciidoctor PDF, thus making them portable.

Configuring the Font Search Path

When you execute Asciidoctor PDF, specify the directory where the fonts reside using the pdf-fontsdir attribute:

$ asciidoctor-pdf -a pdf-theme=basic-theme.yml -a pdf-fontsdir=path/to/fonts document.adoc

You can specify multiple directories by separating the paths with either a comma (,):

$ asciidoctor-pdf -a pdf-theme=basic-theme.yml -a pdf-fontsdir=path/to/fonts,path/to/more-fonts document.adoc

or a semi-colon (;) (which requires enclosing the combined value in double quotes to escape the delimiter from the shell):

$ asciidoctor-pdf -a pdf-theme=basic-theme.yml -a pdf-fontsdir="path/to/fonts;path/to/more-fonts" document.adoc

To include the location of the bundled fonts in the search, include the GEM_FONTS_DIR token in the list:

$ asciidoctor-pdf -a pdf-theme=basic-theme.yml -a pdf-fontsdir="path/to/fonts;GEM_FONTS_DIR" document.adoc

When running Asciidoctor PDF on the JVM (perhaps using AsciidoctorJ PDF), you can refer a directory inside of any JAR file on the classpath by prefixing the path with uri:classloader::

$ asciidoctorj -b pdf -a pdf-theme=basic-theme.yml -a pdf-fontsdir="uri:classloader:/path/to/fonts;GEM_FONTS_DIR" document.adoc

Subsetting Your Font

When Asciidoctor PDF creates the PDF, it only embeds the glyphs from the font that are needed to render the characters present in the document. Effectively, it subsets the font. While that saves space taken up by the generated PDF, you may still be storing the full font in your source repository.

To minimize the size of the source font, you can use FontForge to subset the font ahead of time. Subsetting a font means remove glyphs you don’t plan to use. Doing so is not a requirement, simply a personal preference.

Fallback Fonts

If a TrueType font is missing a character needed to render the document, such as a special symbol or emoji, you can have Asciidoctor PDF look for the character in a fallback font.

You only need to specify a single fallback font, typically one that provides a full set of symbols. If the character isn’t found in the fallback font, it will mostly likely be replaced by a box (i.e., the notdef glyph), which is guaranteed if you’re using the bundled fallback font.

❗	When defining the fallback font, you must specify all four variants (normal, bold, italic, bold_italic), even if you use the same font file for each.

❗	The fallback font only gets used when the primary font is a TrueType or OpenType font (i.e., TTF, DFont, TTC, OTF). Any glyph missing from an AFM font is simply replaced with the “not” glyph (`¬`).

🔥

The default theme does not use a fallback font. However, the built-in default-with-fallback-font theme does. In fact, it provides two. One for general writing in non-Latin languages (M+ 1p) and another for emoji (Noto Emoji). Using the fallback font slows down PDF generation slightly because it has to analyze every single character. It’s use is not recommended for large documents. Instead, it’s best to select primary fonts that have all the characters you need.

Like with other custom fonts, you first need to declare the fallback font. Let’s choose Droid Sans Fallback. You can map all the styles to a single font file (since bold and italic don’t usually make sense for symbols).

font:
  catalog:
    Roboto:
      normal: roboto-normal.ttf
      italic: roboto-italic.ttf
      bold: roboto-bold.ttf
      bold_italic: roboto-bold_italic.ttf
    DroidSansFallback: droid-sans-fallback.ttf

Notice that we only declare the fallback font file once using a literal value. This ensures the font is defined for all four variants so it will be used regardless of which font style is active when it’s called on. This assignment is equivalent to the following:

DroidSansFallback:
  '*': droid-sans-fallback.ttf

The benefit of this syntax is that it allows you to use a separate font file for just one of the variants (e.g., bold).

Next, add the key name to the fallbacks key under the font-catalog key. The fallbacks key accepts an array of values, meaning you can specify more than one fallback font. However, we recommend using a single fallback font, if possible, as shown here:

font:
  catalog:
    Roboto:
      normal: roboto-normal.ttf
      italic: roboto-italic.ttf
      bold: roboto-bold.ttf
      bold_italic: roboto-bold_italic.ttf
    DroidSansFallback: droid-sans-fallback.ttf
  fallbacks:
  - DroidSansFallback

💡	If you are using more than one fallback font, add additional lines to the `fallbacks` key.

Of course, make sure you’ve configured your theme to use your custom font:

base:
  font-family: Roboto

That’s it! Now you’re covered. If your custom font is missing a glyph, Asciidoctor PDF will look in your fallback font. You don’t need to reference the fallback font anywhere else in your theme file.

Here’s another example that shows how to use an alternative emoji font (Symbola):

extends: default-with-fallback-font
font:
  catalog:
    merge: true
    Symbola: /path/to/symbola.ttf
  fallbacks: [ M+ 1p, Symbola ]

Now Asciidoctor PDF will look for the emoji in the Symbola font instead of the Noto Emoji font.

Keys

This section lists all the keys that are available when creating a custom theme. The keys are organized by category. Each category represents a common prefix under which the keys are typically nested.

💡	Keys can be nested wherever an underscore (`_`) or hyphen (`-`) appears in the name. This nested structure is for organizational purposes only. All keys are flatted when the theme is loaded (e.g., `align` nested under `base` becomes `base-align`).

The converter uses the values of these keys to control how most elements are arranged and styled in the PDF. The default values listed in this section get inherited from the base theme.

❗	The default theme has a different set of values which are not shown in this guide.

When creating a theme that extends the base theme, all keys are optional. Required keys are provided by the base theme. Therefore, you only have to declare keys that you want to override.

Extends

A theme can extend another theme using the extends key. For example:

extends: default
base:
  font-color: #ff0000

The extends key accepts either a single value or an array of values. Each value is interpreted as a filename. If the filename equals default, it resolves to the location of the default (built-in) theme. If the filename is absolute, it’s used as is. If the filename begins with ./, it’s resolved as a theme file relative to the current theme file. Otherwise, the filename is resolved as a theme file in the normal way (relative to the value of the pdf-themesdir attribute).

Currently, the theme starts out empty. Then, the files referenced by the extends key are loaded in order. Finally, the keys in the current file are loaded. Each time a theme is loaded, the keys are overlaid onto the keys from the previous theme.

Key	Value Type	Example
extends	String or Array (default: [])	extends: - default - ./brand-theme.yml

Font

The font key is where you declare custom fonts (catalog key) and configure the fallback fonts (fallbacks key).

The data format of the catalog key is a map. Each key is the name of the font that you can use to refer to the font elsewhere in the theme. The value is either a font path (which is used for all font styles) or another map that specifies a font path to each of the four font styles. You can also configure the catalog to merge entries from an inherited font catalog. See Extending the Font Catalog.

The data format of the fallbacks key is an array. The values of the array are the font names declared in the catalog (or a name inherited from another theme). These fallbacks are used, in the order listed, when a glyph cannot be found in the primary font for a given element.

Key

Value Type

Example

catalog

Map

font:
  catalog:
    Noto Serif:
      normal: GEM_FONTS_DIR/notoserif-regular-subset.ttf
      bold: GEM_FONTS_DIR/notoserif-bold-subset.ttf
      italic: GEM_FONTS_DIR/notoserif-italic-subset.ttf
      bold_italic: GEM_FONTS_DIR/notoserif-bold_italic-subset.ttf

fallbacks

Array

font:
  fallbacks:
  - M+ 1p Fallback
  - Noto Emoji

Extending the Font Catalog

If you define a font catalog in a theme that extends from default, and you want to continue to use the bundled fonts in your theme, you either have to redeclare the bundled fonts:

Redeclaring the bundle fonts in a custom theme

extends: default
font:
  catalog:
    Noto Serif:
      normal: GEM_FONTS_DIR/notoserif-regular-subset.ttf
      bold: GEM_FONTS_DIR/notoserif-bold-subset.ttf
      italic: GEM_FONTS_DIR/notoserif-italic-subset.ttf
      bold_italic: GEM_FONTS_DIR/notoserif-bold_italic-subset.ttf
    M+ 1mn:
      normal: GEM_FONTS_DIR/mplus1mn-regular-subset.ttf
      bold: GEM_FONTS_DIR/mplus1mn-bold-subset.ttf
      italic: GEM_FONTS_DIR/mplus1mn-italic-subset.ttf
      bold_italic: GEM_FONTS_DIR/mplus1mn-bold_italic-subset.ttf
    Your Font:
      normal: /path/to/your/font.ttf
heading:
  font-family: Your Font

or you need to set merge: true above your font definitions:

Merging with the inherited font catalog

extends: default
font:
  catalog:
    merge: true
    Your Font:
      normal: /path/to/your/font.ttf
heading:
  font-family: Your Font

If you’re referring to a bundled font, you’ll need to prefix the path with GEM_FONTS_DIR (or add it to the value of the pdf-fontsdir attribute) so the converter can find and register it. You can find the bundle font definitions in default theme.

Role

The keys in the role category define custom roles for formatting. The name of the role is the first subkey level. The role name may contain a hyphen, but a role name cannot contain an underscore. The keys under the role are the theming properties.

❗	Custom roles only apply to inline phrases.

Here’s an example of a role for making text red:

role:
  red:
    font-color: #ff0000

This role can be used as follows:

Error text is shown in [.red]#red#.

You can also use a role to unset a font color (to make it inherit):

role:
  heading-code:
    font-color: ~

This role can be used as follows:

== [.heading-code]`SELECT` clause

The converter provides several predefined roles, which can can all be redefined. The big and small roles map the font size to the $base-font-size-large and $base-font-size-small values, respectively. The underline and line-through roles add the underline and strikethrough decorations, respectively. The subtitle role is used to configure the font properties of the subtitle of a section title. The unresolved role is applied to the text of an unresolved reference (currently footnotes only). The color roles (e.g., blue), which you may be familiar with from the HTML converter, are not mapped by default. You’ll need to define these color roles in your theme if you’d like to make use of them when converting to PDF.

Key	Value Type	Example
Key Prefix: role-<name>
background-color	Color (default: not set)	role: highlight: background-color: #ffff00
border-color	Color (default: not set)	role: found: border-color: #cccccc
border-offset	Number (default: 0)	role: found: border-offset: 2
border-radius	Number (default: not set)	role: found: border-radius: 3
border-width	Number (default: not set)	role: found: border-width: 0.5
font-color	Color (default: inherit)	role: red: font-color: #ff0000
font-family	Font family name (default: Courier)	role: label: font-family: M+ 1mn
font-size	Number (default: inherit)	role: large: font-size: 12
font-style	Font style (default: inherit)	role: heavy: font-style: bold
text-decoration	Text decoration (default: none)	role: deleted: text-decoration: line-through
text-decoration-color	Color (default: $role-<name>-font-color)	role: deleted: text-decoration-color: #ff0000
text-decoration-width	Number (default: $base-text-decoration-width)	role: underline: text-decoration-width: 0.5

Cover

The keys in this category control the front and back cover images. Currently, the only supported feature is setting the image per side.

Key	Value Type	Example
Key Prefix: cover
<face>-image^[1]	path, image macro^[2] (default: not set)	cover: front: image: image:cover.pdf[page=2]

<face> can be front or back.
The value may be an image file or a PDF file. A relative path will be resolved relative to the value of the pdf-themesdir attribute. An image files is handled just like a background image. If a PDF file is specified, the first page is used unless another page is specified by the page attribute. The page from the PDF file will be imported as is.

Page

The keys in this category control the size, margins, and background of each page (i.e., canvas). We recommended that you define this category before all other categories.

📎	The background of the title page can be styled independently of other pages. See Title Page for details.

Key	Value Type	Example
Key Prefix: page
background-color^[1]	Color (default: #ffffff)	page: background-color: #fefefe
background-image^[2]	image macro^[3] (default: not set)	page: background-image: image:page-bg.png[]
background-image-(recto\|verso)^[2]	image macro^[3] (default: not set)	page: background-image: recto: image:page-bg-recto.png[] verso: image:page-bg-verso.png[]
foreground-image^[2]	image macro^[3] (default: not set)	page foreground-image: image:watermark.svg[]
initial-zoom	Fit \| FitH \| FitV (default: FitH)	page: initial-zoom: Fit
layout	portrait \| landscape (default: portrait)	page: layout: landscape
margin	Measurement \| Measurement[top,right,bottom,left] (default: 36)	page: margin: [0.5in, 0.67in, 1in, 0.67in]
margin-inner^[4]	Measurement (default: 48)	page: margin-inner: 0.75in
margin-outer^[4]	Measurement (default: 24)	page: margin-outer: 0.59in
mode	outline \| none \| thumbs \| fullscreen \| fullscreen outline \| fullscreen none \| fullscreen thumbs (default: outline)	page: mode: fullscreen none
size	Named size \| Measurement[width,height] (default: A4)	page: size: Letter
Key Prefix: numbering
start-at^[5]	cover \| title \| toc \| after-toc \| body \| Integer (default: body)	page: numbering: start-at: toc

To disable the background color for the page, set the value to white (i.e., FFFFFF). The color keyword transparent is not recognized in this context.
By default, page background and foreground images are automatically scaled to fit the bounds of the page (i.e., fit=contain) and centered (i.e., position=center). The size of the image can be controlled using any of the sizing attributes on the image macro (i.e., fit, pdfwidth, scaledwidth, or width) when fit=none. The position of the image can be controlled using the position attribute. If the recto (right-hand, odd-numbered pages) or verso (left-hand, even-numbered pages) background image is specified, it will be used only for that side (not available for the foreground image). If you define the keys using the flatten structure (e.g., page-background-image-recto), you can also set the default page background image (page-background-image), which will then be used as a fallback if a background image isn’t specified for a given side. To disable the image, use the value none.
Target may be an absolute path or a path relative to the value of the pdf-themesdir attribute.
The margins for recto (right-hand, odd-numbered) and verso (left-hand, even-numbered) pages are calculated automatically from the margin-inner and margin-outer values. These margins and used when the value prepress is assigned to the media document attribute. If no cover is specified, the recto margin is not applied to the title page. To apply the recto margin to the title page, but not include a cover, assign the value ~ to the front-cover-image attribute.
The cover value is only recognized if the documet has a front cover page (i.e., front-cover-image). The title, toc, and after-toc values are only recognized if the title page is enabled (i.e., doctype is book or title-page attribute is set) The toc value only applies if the toc is in the default location (before the first page of the body). If value is toc, and the toc macro is used to position the toc, the start-at behavior is the same as if the toc is not enabled. If value is an integer, page numbering will start at the specified page of the body (i.e., 1 is first page, 2 is second page, etc.) If value is after-toc, the page numbering will start after the toc, no matter where it’s placed in the document.

Base

The keys in this category provide generic theme settings and are often referenced throughout the theme file as variables. We recommended that you define this category after the page category and before all other categories.

📎	While it’s common to define additional keys in this category (e.g., `base-border-radius`) to keep your theme DRY, we recommend using custom variables instead.

Key	Value Type	Example
Key Prefix: base
align	Text alignment (default: left)	base: align: justify
border-color	Color (default: #eeeeee)	base: border-color: #eeeeee
border-width	Number (default: 0.5)	base: border-width: 0.5
font-color	Color (default: #000000)	base: font-color: #333333
font-family	Font family name (default: Helvetica)	base: font-family: Noto Serif
font-kerning	normal \| none (default: normal)	base: font-kerning: none
font-size	Number (default: 12)	base: font-size: 10.5
font-size-min	Number (default: 6)	base: font-size-min: $base-font-size * 0.75
font-style	Font style (default: normal)	base: font-style: normal
text-transform^[1]	none (default: none)	base: text-transform: none
line-height-length^[2]	Number (default: not set)	base: line-height-length: 12
line-height^[2]	Number (default: 1.15)	base: line-height: > $base-line-height-length / $base-font-size
text-decoration-width	Number (default: 1)	base: text-decoration-width: 0.5

The text-transform key cannot be set globally. Therefore, this key should not be used. The value of none is implicit and is documented here for completeness.
line-height-length is a utility property that’s internal to the theme. It’s used as an intermediate property for computing the base-line-height from the base font size and the desired line height size. For instance, if you set base-line-height-length, you can use $base-line-height-length / $base-font-size to set the value of base-line-height. You don’t have to go about it this way in your own theme.

Vertical Spacing

The keys in this category control the general spacing between elements where a more specific setting is not designated.

Key	Value Type	Example
vertical-spacing	Number (default: 12)	vertical-spacing: 10

Link

The keys in this category are used to style hyperlink text.

Key	Value Type	Example
Key Prefix: link
background-color	Color (default: not set)	link: background-color: #efefef
border-offset	Number (default: 0)	link: border-offset: 2
font-color	Color (default: #0000ee)	link: font-color: #428bca
font-family	Font family name (default: inherit)	link: font-family: Roboto
font-size	Number (default: inherit)	link: font-size: 9
font-style	Font style (default: inherit)	link: font-style: italic
text-decoration	Text decoration (default: none)	link: text-decoration: underline
text-decoration-color	Color (default: $link-font-color)	link: text-decoration-color: #0000ff
text-decoration-width	Number (default: $base-text-decoration-width)	link: text-decoration-width: 0.5

(Inline) Literal

The keys in this category are used for inline monospaced text in prose and table cells.

Key	Value Type	Example
Key Prefix: literal
background-color	Color (default: not set)	literal: background-color: #f5f5f5
border-color^[1]	Color (default: not set)	literal: border-color: #cccccc
border-offset^[2]	Number (default: 0)	literal: border-offset: 2
border-radius	Number (default: not set)	literal: border-radius: 3
border-width	Number (default: $base-border-width)	literal: border-width: 0.5
font-color	Color (default: inherit)	literal: font-color: #b12146
font-family	Font family name (default: Courier)	literal: font-family: M+ 1mn
font-size	Number (default: inherit)	literal: font-size: 12
font-style	Font style (default: inherit)	literal: font-style: bold

The border is only used if a border color is specified and the border width is not explicitly set to 0. The border only works properly if the literal phrase does not have nested formatting. Otherwise, the border will be inherited, producing a less than desirable result.
The border offset is the amount that the background and border swells around the text. It does not affect the distance between the formatted phrase and the phrases that surround it.

Heading

The keys in this category control the style of most headings, including part titles, chapter titles, sections titles, the table of contents title, and discrete headings.

Key	Value Type	Example
Key Prefix: heading
align	Text alignment (default: $base-align)	heading: align: center
font-color	Color (default: inherit)	heading: font-color: #222222
font-family	Font family name (default: inherit)	heading: font-family: Noto Serif
font-kerning	normal \| none (default: inherit)	heading: font-kerning: none
font-style	Font style (default: bold)	heading: font-style: bold
text-decoration	Text decoration (default: none)	heading: text-decoration: underline
text-decoration-color	Color (default: $heading-font-color)	heading: text-decoration-color: #cccccc
text-decoration-width	Number (default: $base-text-decoration-width)	heading: text-decoration-width: 0.5
text-transform	Text transform (default: inherit)	heading: text-transform: capitalize
line-height	Number (default: 1.15)	heading: line-height: 1.2
margin-top	Measurement (default: 4)	heading: margin-top: $vertical-spacing * 0.2
margin-page-top	Measurement (default: 0)	heading: margin-page-top: $vertical-spacing
margin-bottom	Measurement (default: 12)	heading: margin-bottom: 9.6
min-height-after	Measurement (default: $base-font-size * $base-line-height * 1.5)	heading: min-height-after: 0.5in
chapter-break-before	always \| auto (default: always)	heading: chapter: break-before: auto
part-break-before	always \| auto (default: always)	heading: part: break-before: auto
part-break-after	always \| auto (default: auto)	heading: part: break-after: always
Key Prefix: heading-h<n>^[1]
align	Text alignment (default: $heading-align)	heading: h2-align: center
font-color	Color (default: $heading-font-color)	heading: h2-font-color: [0, 99%, 100%, 0]
font-family	Font family name (default: $heading-font-family)	heading: h4-font-family: Roboto
font-kerning	normal \| none (default: $heading-font-kerning)	heading: h3-font-kerning: none
font-size^[1]	Number (default: <1>=24; <2>=18; <3>=16; <4>=14; <5>=12; <6>=10)	heading: h6-font-size: $base-font-size * 1.7
font-style	Font style (default: $heading-font-style)	heading: h3-font-style: bold_italic
text-transform	Text transform (default: $heading-text-transform)	heading: h3-text-transform: uppercase
margin-top	Measurement (default: $heading-margin-top)	heading: h2-margin-top: $vertical-spacing * 0.5
margin-page-top	Measurement (default: $heading-margin-page-top)	heading: h2-margin-page-top: $vertical-spacing
margin-bottom	Measurement (default: $heading-margin-bottom)	heading: h2-margin-bottom: 10

<n> is a number ranging from 1 to 6, representing each of the six heading levels.
A font size is assigned to each heading level by the base theme. If you want the font size of a specific level to be inherited, you must assign the value null (or ~ for short).

Section

The keys in this category control the style of a section body.

Key	Value Type	Example
Key Prefix: section
indent	Measurement \| Measurement[left,right]^[1] (default: 0)	section: indent: [0.5in, 0]

Applies to the section body only, excluding section titles and discrete headings. A single value gets applied to both the left and right side (e.g., 0.5in). A two-value array configures the left and right side independently (e.g., [0.5in, 0]).

Title Page

The keys in this category control the style of the title page as well as the arrangement and style of the elements on it.

❗	The title page is only enabled by default for the book doctype (e.g., `:doctype: book`). If you want to enable the title page when using a different doctype (such as the article doctype), you must define the `title-page` attribute in the document header (i.e., `:title-page:`).

📎	Subtitle partitioning of the doctitle is only enabled when the title page is also enabled.

💡

The title page can be disabled for the book doctype by setting the notitle attribute in the AsciiDoc document header (i.e., :notitle:) or setting the value of the title_page category key in the theme to false. (It’s analogue, :!showtitle:, does not work with this converter). For other doctypes, the same result can be achieved by not setting the title-page attribute.

Key	Value Type	Example
Key Prefix: title-page
align	Text alignment (default: center)	title-page: align: right
background-color^[1]	Color (default: inherit)	title-page: background-color: #eaeaea
background-image^[2]	image macro^[3] (default: not set)	title-page: background-image: image:title.png[]
font-color	Color (default: inherit)	title-page: font-color: #333333
font-family	Font family name (default: inherit)	title-page: font-family: Noto Serif
font-kerning	normal \| none (default: inherit)	title-page: font-kerning: none
font-size	Number (default: inherit)	title-page: font-size: 13
font-style	Font style (default: inherit)	title-page: font-style: bold
text-transform	Text transform (default: inherit)	title-page: text-transform: uppercase
line-height	Number (default: 1.15)	title-page: line-height: 1
Key Prefix: title-page-logo
align	Image alignment (default: inherit)	title-page: logo: align: right
image	image macro^[3] (default: not set)	title-page: logo: image: image:logo.png[pdfwidth=25%]
top	Measurement^[4] (default: 10%)	title-page: logo: top: 25%
Key Prefix: title-page-title
display	none (default: not set)	title-page: title: display: none
font-color	Color (default: inherit)	title-page: title: font-color: #999999
font-family	Font family name (default: inherit)	title-page: title: font-family: Noto Serif
font-kerning	normal \| none (default: inherit)	title-page: title: font-kerning: none
font-size	Number (default: 18)	title-page: title: font-size: $heading-h1-font-size
font-style	Font style (default: inherit)	title-page: title: font-style: bold
text-transform	Text transform (default: inherit)	title-page: title: text-transform: uppercase
line-height	Number (default: $heading-line-height)	title-page: title: line-height: 0.9
top	Measurement^[4] (default: 40%)	title-page: title: top: 55%
margin-top	Measurement (default: 0)	title-page: title: margin-top: 13.125
margin-bottom	Measurement (default: 0)	title-page: title: margin-bottom: 5
Key Prefix: title-page-subtitle
display	none (default: not set)	title-page: subtitle: display: none
font-color	Color (default: inherit)	title-page: subtitle: font-color: #181818
font-family	Font family name (default: inherit)	title-page: subtitle: font-family: Noto Serif
font-kerning	normal \| none (default: inherit)	title-page: subtitle: font-kerning: none
font-size	Number (default: 14)	title-page: subtitle: font-size: $heading-h3-font-size
font-style	Font style (default: inherit)	title-page: subtitle: font-style: bold_italic
text-transform	Text transform (default: inherit)	title-page: subtitle: text-transform: uppercase
line-height	Number (default: $heading-line-height)	title-page: subtitle: line-height: 1
margin-top	Measurement (default: 0)	title-page: subtitle: margin-top: 13.125
margin-bottom	Measurement (default: 0)	title-page: subtitle: margin-bottom: 5
Key Prefix: title-page-authors
content	Quoted AsciiDoc string (optional subkeys: name_only, with_email, with_url) (default: "{author}")	title-page: authors: content: name_only: "{author}" with_email: "{author} <{email}>" with_url: "{url}[{author}]"
display	none (default: not set)	title-page: authors: display: none
delimiter	Quoted string (default: ', ')	title-page: authors: delimiter: '; '
font-color	Color (default: inherit)	title-page: authors: font-color: #181818
font-family	Font family name (default: inherit)	title-page: authors: font-family: Noto Serif
font-kerning	normal \| none (default: inherit)	title-page: authors: font-kerning: none
font-size	Number (default: inherit)	title-page: authors: font-size: 13
font-style	Font style (default: inherit)	title-page: authors: font-style: bold_italic
text-transform	Text transform (default: inherit)	title-page: authors: text-transform: uppercase
margin-top	Measurement (default: 12)	title-page: authors: margin-top: 13.125
margin-bottom	Measurement (default: 0)	title-page: authors: margin-bottom: 5
Key Prefix: title-page-revision
display	none (default: not set)	title-page: revision: display: none
delimiter	Quoted string (default: ', ')	title-page: revision: delimiter: ': '
font-color	Color (default: inherit)	title-page: revision: font-color: #181818
font-family	Font family name (default: inherit)	title-page: revision: font-family: Noto Serif
font-kerning	normal \| none (default: inherit)	title-page: revision: font-kerning: none
font-size	Number (default: inherit)	title-page: revision: font-size: $base-font-size-small
font-style	Font style (default: inherit)	title-page: revision: font-style: bold
text-transform	Text transform (default: inherit)	title-page: revision: text-transform: uppercase
margin-top	Measurement (default: 0)	title-page: revision: margin-top: 13.125
margin-bottom	Measurement (default: 0)	title-page: revision: margin-bottom: 5

To disable the background color for the title page, set the value to white (i.e., FFFFFF). The color keyword transparent is not recognized in this context.
By default, page background images are automatically scaled to fit the bounds of the page (i.e., fit=contain) and centered (i.e., position=center). The size of the background image can be controlled using any of the sizing attributes on the image macro (i.e., fit, pdfwidth, scaledwidth, or width) when fit=none. The position of the background image can be controlled using the position attribute.
Target may be an absolute path or a path relative to the value of the pdf-themesdir attribute.
% unit is relative to content height; vh unit is relative to page height.

Prose

The keys in this category control the spacing around paragraphs (paragraph blocks, paragraph content of a block, and other prose content). Typically, all the margin is placed on the bottom.

Key	Value Type	Example
Key Prefix: prose
margin-top	Measurement (default: 0)	prose: margin-top: 0
margin-bottom	Measurement (default: 12)	prose: margin-bottom: $vertical-spacing
margin-inner^[1]	Measurement (default: $prose-margin-bottom)	prose: margin-inner: 0
text-indent	Measurement (default: not set)	prose: text-indent: 18

Controls the margin between adjacent paragraphs. Useful when using indented paragraphs.

Block

The keys in this category control the spacing around block elements when a more specific setting is not designated.

Key	Value Type	Example
Key Prefix: block
margin-top	Measurement (default: 0)	block: margin-top: 6
margin-bottom	Measurement (default: 12)	block: margin-bottom: 6

Block styles are applied to the following block types:

admonition
example
quote

verse
sidebar
image

listing
literal
table

Caption

The keys in this category control the arrangement and style of block captions. In addition to the generic caption category, each of these keys (except for text decoration) can be set on the caption key nested inside the following block categories: blockquote, code, example, footnotes, image, listing, table, and verse.

Key	Value Type	Example
Key Prefix: caption
align^[1]	Text alignment (default: left)	caption: align: left
font-color	Color (default: inherit)	caption: font-color: #333333
font-family	Font family name (default: inherit)	caption: font-family: M+ 1mn
font-kerning	normal \| none (default: inherit)	caption: font-kerning: none
font-size	Number (default: inherit)	caption: font-size: 11
font-style	Font style (default: italic)	caption: font-style: italic
text-decoration	Text decoration (default: none)	caption: text-decoration: line-through
text-decoration-color	Color (default: $caption-font-color)	caption: text-decoration-color: #ff0000
text-decoration-width	Number (default: $base-text-decoration-width)	caption: text-decoration-width: 0.5
text-transform	Text transform (default: inherit)	caption: text-transform: uppercase
margin-inside	Measurement (default: 4)	caption: margin-inside: 3
margin-outside	Measurement (default: 0)	caption: margin-outside: 0

When nested inside the image key (i.e., image-caption-align), the value inherit is also accepted. The value inherit resolves to the alignment of the block image.

Code

The keys in this category are used to control the style of literal, listing, and source blocks.

Key	Value Type	Example
Key Prefix: code
background-color	Color (default: not set)	code: background-color: #f5f5f5
border-color	Color (default: #eeeeee)	code: border-color: #cccccc
border-radius	Number (default: not set)	code: border-radius: 4
border-width	Number (default: 0.5)	code: border-width: 0.75
font-color	Color (default: inherit)	code: font-color: #333333
font-family	Font family name (default: Courier)	code: font-family: M+ 1mn
font-size	Number (default: 10.8)	code: font-size: 11
font-style	Font style (default: inherit)	code: font-style: italic
line-height	Number (default: 1.2)	code: line-height: 1.25
line-gap^[1]	Number (default: 0)	code: line-gap: 3.8
padding	Measurement \| Measurement[top,right,bottom,left] (default: 9)	code: padding: 11
Key Prefix: code-highlight^[2]
background-color	Color (default: #FFFFCC)	code: highlight-background-color: #ffff00
Key Prefix: code-linenum^[3]
font-color	Color (default: #999999)	code: linenum-font-color: #ccc

The line-gap property is used to tune the height of the background color applied to a span of block text highlighted using Rouge.
The code-highlight category only applies when using Rouge as the source highlighter. Otherwise, the styles are controlled by the source highlighter theme.
The code-linenum category only applies when using Pygments as the source highlighter. Otherwise, the styles are controlled by the source highlighter theme.

Callout Numbers

The keys in this category are used to control the style of callout numbers (i.e., conums) inside verbatim blocks and in callout lists (colists).

Key	Value Type	Example
Key Prefix: conum
font-color	Color (default: inherit)	conum: font-color: #b12146
font-family^[1,2]	Font family name (default: inherit)	conum: font-family: M+ 1mn
font-kerning^[2]	normal \| none (default: inherit)	conum: font-kerning: none
font-size^[2]	Number (default: inherit)	conum: font-size: $base-font-size
font-style^[2]	Font style (default: inherit)	conum: font-style: normal
line-height^[2]	Number (default: 1.15)	conum: line-height: 4 / 3
glyphs^[3]	circled \| filled \| Unicode String ranges (default: circled)	conum: glyphs: \u0031-\u0039

Currently, the font must contain the circle numbers starting at glyph U+2460.
font-family, font-kerning, font-size, font-style, and line-height are only used for markers in a colist. These properties are inherited for conums inside a verbatim block.
The font must provide the required glyphs. The glyphs can be specified as a comma-separated list of ranges, where the range values are Unicode numbers (e.g., \u2460). Unicode escape sequences are recognized even if the value is not enclosed in double quotes.

Button

The keys in this category apply to a button reference (generated from the inline button macro).

Key	Value Type	Example
Key Prefix: button
background-color	Color (default: not set)	button: background-color: #0000ff
border-color^[1]	Color (default: not set)	button: border-color: #cccccc
border-offset^[2]	Number (default: 0)	button: border-offset: 1.5
border-radius	Number (default: 0)	button: border-radius: 2
border-width	Number (default: $base-border-width)	button: border-width: 0.5
content^[3]	Quoted string (default: "%s")	button: content: "[\u2009%s\u2009]"
font-color	Color (default: inherit)	button: font-color: #ffffff
font-family	Font family name (default: Courier)	button: font-family: M+ 1mn
font-size	Number (default: inherit)	button: font-size: 12
font-style	Font style (default: bold)	button: font-style: normal

The border is only used if a border color is specified and the border width is not explicitly set to 0.
The border offset is the amount that the background and border swells around the text. It does not affect the distance between the formatted phrase and the phrases that surround it.
The character sequence %s in the content key gets replaced with the button label.

Key

The keys in this category apply to a key reference (generated from the inline kbd macro).

Key	Value Type	Example
Key Prefix: key
background-color	Color (default: not set)	key: background-color: #fafafa
border-color^[1]	Color (default: not set)	key: border-color: #cccccc
border-offset^[2]	Number (default: 0)	key: border-offset: 1.5
border-radius	Number (default: 0)	key: border-radius: 2
border-width	Number (default: $base-border-width)	key: border-width: 0.375
separator^[3]	Quoted string (default: "+")	key: separator: "\u2009+\u2009"
font-color	Color (default: inherit)	key: font-color: #000
font-family	Font family name (default: Courier)	key: font-family: $base-font-family
font-size	Number (default: inherit)	key: font-size: 10.5
font-style	Font style (default: italic)	key: font-style: normal

The border is only used if a border color is specified and the border width is not explicitly set to 0.
The border offset is the amount that the background and border swells around the text. It does not affect the distance between the formatted phrase and the phrases that surround it.
The separator is only used for multi-key sequences.

Mark

The keys in this category apply to a mark phrase.

Key	Value Type	Example
Key Prefix: mark
font-color	Color (default: inherit)	mark: font-color: #333333
font-style	Font style (default: inherit)	mark: font-style: bold
background-color	Color (default: #ff0000)	mark: background-color: #fcf8e3
border-offset	Number (default: 1)	mark: border-offset: 2

Blockquote

The keys in this category control the arrangement and style of quote blocks.

Key	Value Type	Example
Key Prefix: blockquote
background-color	Color (default: not set)	blockquote: background-color: #dddddd
border-width^[1]	Number (default: 0)	blockquote: border-width: 0.5
border-left-width^[1]	Number (default: 4)	blockquote: border-left-width: 5
border-color^[1]	Color (default: #eeeeee)	blockquote: border-color: #dddddd
font-color	Color (default: inherit)	blockquote: font-color: #333333
font-family	Font family name (default: inherit)	blockquote: font-family: Noto Serif
font-kerning	normal \| none (default: inherit)	blockquote: font-kerning: none
font-size	Number (default: inherit)	blockquote: font-size: 13
font-style	Font style (default: inherit)	blockquote: font-style: bold
text-transform	Text transform (default: inherit)	blockquote: text-transform: uppercase
padding	Measurement \| Measurement[top,right,bottom,left] (default: [6, 12, -6, 14])	blockquote: padding: [5, 10, -5, 12]
Key Prefix: blockquote-cite
font-size	Number (default: inherit)	blockquote: cite: font-size: 9
font-color	Color (default: inherit)	blockquote: cite: font-color: #999999
font-family	Font family name (default: inherit)	blockquote: cite: font-family: Noto Serif
font-kerning	normal \| none (default: inherit)	blockquote: cite: font-kerning: none
font-style	Font style (default: inherit)	blockquote: cite: font-style: bold
text-transform	Text transform (default: inherit)	blockquote: cite: text-transform: uppercase

If border-left-width is non-zero, the border is only applied to the left side. Otherwise, if border-width is non-zero, the border is drawn around the whole block.

Verse

The keys in this category control the arrangement and style of verse blocks.

Key	Value Type	Example
Key Prefix: verse
background-color	Color (default: not set)	verse: background-color: #dddddd
border-width^[1]	Number (default: 0)	verse: border-width: 0.5
border-left-width^[1]	Number (default: 4)	verse: border-left-width: 5
border-color^[1]	Color (default: #eeeeee)	verse: border-color: #dddddd
font-color	Color (default: inherit)	verse: font-color: #333333
font-family^[2]	Font family name (default: inherit)	verse: font-family: M+ 1mn
font-kerning	normal \| none (default: inherit)	verse: font-kerning: none
font-size	Number (default: inherit)	verse: font-size: 10
font-style	Font style (default: inherit)	verse: font-style: bold
text-transform	Text transform (default: inherit)	verse: text-transform: uppercase
padding	Measurement \| Measurement[top,right,bottom,left] (default: [6, 12, -6, 14])	verse: padding: [5, 10, -5, 12]
Key Prefix: verse-cite
font-size	Number (default: inherit)	verse: cite: font-size: 9
font-color	Color (default: inherit)	verse: cite: font-color: #999999
font-family	Font family name (default: inherit)	verse: cite: font-family: Noto Serif
font-kerning	normal \| none (default: inherit)	verse: cite: font-kerning: none
font-style	Font style (default: inherit)	verse: cite: font-style: italic
text-transform	Text transform (default: inherit)	verse: cite: text-transform: uppercase

If border-left-width is non-zero, the border is only applied to the left side. Otherwise, if border-width is non-zero, the border is drawn around the whole block.
The verse block does not use a fixed-width font by default, which can affect the layout if the content relies on columns. You can change verse blocks to use a fixed-width font (not necessarily a monospaced font) using this setting.

Sidebar

The keys in this category control the arrangement and style of sidebar blocks.

Key	Value Type	Example
Key Prefix: sidebar
background-color	Color (default: #eeeeee)	sidebar: background-color: #eeeeee
border-color	Color (default: not set)	sidebar: border-color: #ffffff
border-radius	Number (default: not set)	sidebar: border-radius: 4
border-width	Number (default: not set)	sidebar: border-width: 0.5
font-color	Color (default: inherit)	sidebar: font-color: #262626
font-family	Font family name (default: inherit)	sidebar: font-family: M+ 1p
font-kerning	normal \| none (default: inherit)	sidebar: font-kerning: none
font-size	Number (default: inherit)	sidebar: font-size: 13
font-style	Font style (default: inherit)	sidebar: font-style: italic
text-transform	Text transform (default: inherit)	sidebar: text-transform: uppercase
padding	Measurement \| Measurement[top,right,bottom,left] (default: [12, 12, 0, 12])	sidebar: padding: [12, 15, 0, 15]
Key Prefix: sidebar-title
align	Text alignment (default: center)	sidebar: title: align: center
font-color	Color (default: inherit)	sidebar: title: font-color: #333333
font-family	Font family name (default: inherit)	sidebar: title: font-family: Noto Serif
font-kerning	normal \| none (default: inherit)	sidebar: title: font-kerning: none
font-size	Number (default: inherit)	sidebar: title: font-size: 13
font-style	Font style (default: bold)	sidebar: title: font-style: bold
text-transform	Text transform (default: inherit)	sidebar: title: text-transform: uppercase

Example

The keys in this category control the arrangement and style of example blocks.

Key	Value Type	Example
Key Prefix: example
background-color	Color (default: #ffffff)	example: background-color: #fffef7
border-color	Color (default: #eeeeee)	example: border-color: #eeeeee
border-radius	Number (default: not set)	example: border-radius: 4
border-width	Number (default: 0.5)	example: border-width: 0.75
font-color	Color (default: inherit)	example: font-color: #262626
font-family	Font family name (default: inherit)	example: font-family: M+ 1p
font-kerning	normal \| none (default: inherit)	example: font-kerning: none
font-size	Number (default: inherit)	example: font-size: 13
font-style	Font style (default: inherit)	example: font-style: italic
text-transform	Text transform (default: inherit)	example: text-transform: uppercase
padding	Measurement \| Measurement[top,right,bottom,left] (default: [12, 12, 0, 12])	example: padding: [15, 15, 0, 15]

Admonition

The keys in this category control the arrangement and style of admonition blocks and the icon used for each admonition type.

Key	Value Type	Example
Key Prefix: admonition
column-rule-color	Color (default: #eeeeee)	admonition: column-rule-color: #aa0000
column-rule-style	solid \| double \| dashed \| dotted (default: solid)	admonition: column-rule-style: double
column-rule-width	Number (default: 0.5)	admonition: column-rule-width: 0.5
font-color	Color (default: inherit)	admonition: font-color: #999999
font-family	Font family name (default: inherit)	admonition: font-family: Noto Sans
font-kerning	normal \| none (default: inherit)	admonition: font-kerning: none
font-size	Number (default: inherit)	admonition: font-size: $base-font-size-large
font-style	Font style (default: inherit)	admonition: font-style: italic
text-transform	Text transform (default: inherit)	admonition: text-transform: none
padding	Measurement \| Measurement[top,right,bottom,left] (default: [0, 12, 0, 12])	admonition: padding: [0, 12, 0, 12]
Key Prefix: admonition-label
align	Text alignment (default: center)	admonition: label: align: center
min-width	Measurement (default: not set)	admonition: label: min-width: 48
padding^[1]	Measurement \| Measurement[top,right,bottom,left] (default: $admonition-padding)	admonition: padding: [0, 12, 0, 12]
vertical-align	top \| middle \| bottom (default: middle)	admonition: label: vertical-align: top
Key Prefix: admonition-label, admonition-label-<name>^[2]
font-color	Color (default: inherit)	admonition: label: font-color: #262626
font-family	Font family name (default: inherit)	admonition: label: font-family: M+ 1p
font-kerning	normal \| none (default: inherit)	admonition: label: font-kerning: none
font-size	Number (default: inherit)	admonition: label: font-size: 12
font-style	Font style (default: bold)	admonition: label: font-style: bold_italic
text-transform	Text transform (default: uppercase)	admonition: label: text-transform: lowercase
Key Prefix: admonition-icon-<name>^[2]
name	<icon set>-<icon name>^[3] (default: not set)	admonition: icon: tip: name: fas-fire
stroke-color	Color (default: caution=#bf3400; important=#bf0000; note=#19407c; tip=#111111; warning=#bf6900)	admonition: icon: important: stroke-color: ff0000
size	Number (default: 24)	admonition: icon: note: size: 24

The top and bottom padding values are ignored on admonition-label-padding.
<name> can be note, tip, warning, important, or caution. All icon types must be grouped under a single icons category. In other words, do not declare the icons category multiple times. The subkeys in the icon category cannot be flattened (e.g., tip-name: far-lightbulb is not valid syntax).
Required. See the .yml files in the prawn-icon repository for a list of valid icon names. The prefix (e.g., fas-) determines which font set to use. If the prefix is not specified, fa- is assumed.

Image

The keys in this category control the arrangement of block images.

Key	Value Type	Example
Key Prefix: image
align	Image alignment (default: left)	image: align: left
width^[1]	Measurement (default: not set)	image: width: 100%
border-color^[2]	Color (default: not set)	image: border-color: #cccccc
border-radius	Number (default: not set)	image: border-radius: 2
border-width^[2]	Number (default: not set)	image: border-width: 0.5
border-fit^[3]	content \| auto (default: content)	image: border-fit: auto
Key Prefix: image-alt
content^[4]	Quoted string (default: "%{link}[%{alt}]%{/link} \| %{target}")	image: alt: content: "%{alt} (%{target})"
font-color	Color (default: inherit)	image: alt: font-color: #ff000
font-family	Font family name (default: inherit)	image alt: font-family: Courier
font-kerning	normal \| none (default: inherit)	image: alt: font-kerning: none
font-size	Number (default: inherit)	image: alt: font-size: 9
font-style	Font style (default: normal)	image: alt: font-style: italic
Key Prefix: image-caption
caption-align	Text alignment \| inherit (default: $caption-align)	image: caption: align: inherit
caption-text-align	Text alignment \| inherit (default: $image-caption-align)	image: caption: text-align: left
caption-max-width^[5]	fit-content \| fit-content(percentage) \| none \| Measurement (default: none)	image: caption: max-width: fit-content

Only applies to block images. If specified, this value takes precedence over the value of the width attribute on the image macro, but not over the value of the pdfwidth attribute.
The border is only used if a border color is specified, the border width is specified, the border width is greater than 0, and the noborder role is not present. The border is drawn above the image on the inside of the box reserved for the image.
The value auto means the border should expand to fit the width of the container (i.e., full width) instead of the image.
Use the placeholders %{alt}, %{target}, %{link}, and %{/link} to insert the alt text, image target, and link open/close tags into the content template.
In order for the image to be sized correctly when max-width is fit-content, a width should always be specified on the image.

SVG

The keys in this category control the SVG integration.

Key	Value Type	Example
Key Prefix: svg
fallback_font_family^[1]	Font family name (default: $base-font-family)	svg: fallback_font_family: Times-Roman

The fallback font family is only used when the font family in the SVG does not map to a known font name from the font catalog.

Lead

The keys in this category control the styling of lead paragraphs.

Key	Value Type	Example
Key Prefix: lead
font-color	Color (default: inherit)	lead: font-color: #262626
font-family	Font family name (default: inherit)	lead: font-family: M+ 1p
font-kerning	normal \| none (default: inherit)	lead: font-kerning: none
font-size	Number (default: 13.5)	lead: font-size: 13
font-style	Font style (default: inherit)	lead: font-style: bold
text-transform	Text transform (default: inherit)	lead: text-transform: uppercase
line-height	Number (default: 1.4)	lead: line-height: 1.4

Abstract

The keys in this category control the arrangement and style of the abstract.

Key	Value Type	Example
Key Prefix: abstract
font-color	Color (default: $base-font-color)	abstract: font-color: #5c6266
font-size	Number (default: 13.5)	abstract: font-size: 13
font-style	Font style (default: $base-font-style)	abstract: font-style: italic
text-transform	Text transform (default: $base-text-transform)	abstract: text-transform: uppercase
line-height	Number (default: 1.4)	abstract: line-height: 1.4
padding	Measurement \| Measurement[top,right,bottom,left] (default: 0)	abstract: padding: [0, 12, 0, 12]
Key Prefix: abstract-first-line
font-color	Color (default: not set)	abstract: first-line: font-color: #AA0000
font-style	Font style (default: not set)	abstract: first-line: font-style: bold
Key Prefix: abstract-title
align	Text alignment (default: center)	abstract: title: align: center
font-color	Color (default: $base-font-color)	abstract: title: font-color: #333333
font-family	Font family name (default: $base-font-family)	abstract: title: font-family: Noto Serif
font-kerning	normal \| none (default: inherit)	abstract: title: font-kerning: none
font-size	Number (default: $base-font-size)	abstract: title: font-size: 13
font-style	Font style (default: bold)	abstract: title: font-style: bold
text-transform	Text transform (default: $base-text-transform)	abstract: title: text-transform: uppercase

Thematic Break

The keys in this category control the style of thematic breaks (aka horizontal rules).

Key	Value Type	Example
Key Prefix: thematic-break
border-color	Color (default: #eeeeee)	thematic-break: border-color: #eeeeee
border-style	solid \| double \| dashed \| dotted (default: solid)	thematic-break: border-style: dashed
border-width	Measurement (default: 0.5)	thematic-break: border-width: 0.5
margin-top	Measurement (default: 0)	thematic-break: margin-top: 6
margin-bottom	Measurement (default: $vertical-spacing)	thematic-break: margin-bottom: 18

Description List

The keys in this category control the arrangement and style of definition list items (terms and descriptions).

💡

Asciidoctor PDF supports unordered and ordered description lists. These are defined as a description list, but get displayed as an unordered or ordered description list with the term as a subject. Only one term is supported. The subject is shown using the term font style (bold by default).

By default, the subject is arranged as a run-in followed by a subject stop (: by default).

[unordered]
alpha:: partially complete and unstable
beta:: feature complete and undergoing testing

The subject stop can be customized using the subject-stop attribute.

[unordered,subject-stop=)]
alpha:: partially complete and unstable
beta:: feature complete and undergoing testing

If the stack role is present, the subject is stacked above the description. In this case, the subject stop is only used if specified explicitly.

[unordered.stack]
alpha:: partially complete and unstable
beta:: feature complete and undergoing testing

Key	Value Type	Example
Key Prefix: description-list
term-font-color	Color (default: inherit)	description-list: term-font-color: #AA0000
term-font-family	Font family name (default: inherit)	description-list: term-font-family: Noto Serif
term-font-kerning	normal \| none (default: inherit)	description-list: term-font-kerning: none
term-font-size	Number (default: inherit)	description-list: term-font-size: 12
term-font-style	Font style (default: bold)	description-list: term-font-style: italic
term-text-transform	Text transform (default: none)	description-list: term-text-transform: none
term-line-height	Number (default: $base-line-height)	description-list: term-line-height: 1.2
term-spacing	Measurement (default: 4)	description-list: term-spacing: 5
description-indent	Number (default: 30)	description-list: description-indent: 15

Outline List

The keys in this category control the arrangement and style of outline list items.

Key	Value Type	Example
Key Prefix: outline-list
indent	Measurement (default: 30)	outline-list: indent: 40
item-spacing	Measurement (default: 6)	outline-list: item-spacing: 4
marker-font-color^[1]	Color (default: inherit)	outline-list: marker-font-color: #3c763d
text-align^[2]	Text alignment (default: $base-align)	outline-list: text-align: left

Controls the color of the bullet glyph that marks items in unordered lists and the number for items in ordered lists.
Controls the alignment of the list text only, not nested content (blocks or lists).

Unordered List

The keys in this category control the arrangement and style of unordered list items.

Key	Value Type	Example
Key Prefix: ulist-marker
font-family	Font family name (default: inherit)	ulist: marker: font-family: Noto Serif
font-size	Number (default: inherit)	ulist: marker: font-size: 9
font-color	Color (default: $outline-list-marker-font-color)	ulist: marker: font-color: #cccccc
line-height	Number (default: $base-line-height)	ulist: marker: line-height: 1.5

Key	Value Type	Example
Key Prefix: ulist-marker-<type>^[1]
content	Quoted string	ulist: marker: disc: content: "\uf140"
font-family	Font family name (default: inherit)	ulist: marker: disc: font-family: fas
font-size	Number (default: inherit)	ulist: marker: disc: font-size: 9
font-color	Color (default: inherit)	ulist: marker: disc: font-color: #ff0000
line-height	Number (default: inherit)	ulist: marker: disc: line-height: 2

<type> is one of disc, square, circle, checked, unchecked

Table

The keys in this category control the arrangement and style of tables and table cells.

Key	Value Type	Example
Key Prefix: table
background-color	Color (default: transparent)	table: background-color: #ffffff
border-color	Color (default: #000000)	table: border-color: #dddddd
border-style	solid \| dashed \| dotted (default: solid)	table: border-style: solid
border-width	Number (default: 0.5)	table: border-width: 0.5
caption-align	Text alignment \| inherit (default: $caption-align)	table: caption-align: inherit
caption-text-align	Text alignment \| inherit (default: $table-caption-align)	table: caption: text-align: left
caption-side	top \| bottom (default: top)	table: caption-side: bottom
caption-max-width	fit-content \| fit-content(percentage) \| none \| Measurement (default: fit-content)	table: caption-max-width: none
font-color	Color (default: inherit)	table: font-color: #333333
font-family	Font family name (default: inherit)	table: font-family: Helvetica
font-kerning	normal \| none (default: inherit)	table: font-kerning: none
font-size	Number (default: inherit)	table: font-size: 9.5
font-style	Font style (default: inherit)	table: font-style: italic
grid-color	Color (default: $table-border-color)	table: grid-color: #eeeeee
grid-style	solid \| dashed \| dotted (default: solid)	table: grid-style: dashed
grid-width	Number (default: $table-border-width)	table: grid-width: 0.5
Key Prefix: table-head
background-color	Color (default: $table-background-color)	table: head: background-color: #f0f0f0
border-bottom-color	Color (default: $table-border-color)	table: head: border-bottom-color: #dddddd
border-bottom-style	solid \| dashed \| dotted (default: solid)	table: head: border-bottom-style: dashed
border-bottom-width	Number (default: 1.25)	table: head: border-bottom-width: 1
font-color	Color (default: $table-font-color)	table: head: font-color: #333333
font-family	Font family name (default: $table-font-family)	table: head: font-family: Noto Serif
font-kerning	normal \| none (default: inherit)	table: head: font-kerning: none
font-size	Number (default: $table-font-size)	table: head: font-size: 10
font-style	Font style (default: bold)	table: head: font-style: normal
text-transform	Text transform (default: inherit)	table: head: text-transform: uppercase
Key Prefix: table-body
background-color	Color (default: $table-background-color)	table: body: background-color: #fdfdfd
stripe-background-color^[1]	Color (default: #eeeeee)	table: body: stripe-background-color: #efefef
Key Prefix: table-foot
background-color	Color (default: $table-background-color)	table: foot: background-color: #f0f0f0
font-color	Color (default: $table-font-color)	table: foot: font-color: #333333
font-family	Font family name (default: $table-font-family)	table: foot: font-family: Noto Serif
font-size	Number (default: $table-font-size)	table: foot: font-size: 10
font-style	Font style (default: normal)	table: foot: font-style: italic
Key Prefix: table-cell
padding	Measurement \| Measurement[top,right,bottom,left] (default: 2)	table: cell: padding: 3
Key Prefix: table-asciidoc-cell
style	inherit \| initial (default: inherit)	table: asciidoc-cell: style: initial
Key Prefix: table-header-cell
background-color	Color (default: $table-head-background-color)	table: header-cell: background-color: #f0f0f0
font-color	Color (default: $table-head-font-color)	table: header-cell: font-color: #1a1a1a
font-family	Font family name (default: $table-head-font-family)	table: header-cell: font-family: Noto Sans
font-size	Number (default: $table-head-font-size)	table: header-cell: font-size: 12
font-style	Font style (default: $table-head-font-style)	table: header-cell: font-style: italic
text-transform	Text transform (default: $table-head-text-transform)	table: header-cell: text-transform: uppercase

This key only controls the color that is used for stripes. The appearance of stripes is controlled using the stripes table attribute, the table-stripes document attribute (since Asciidoctor 2), or the stripes document attribute (prior to Asciidoctor 2). Permitted attribute values are even, odd, all, and none. Prior to Asciidoctor 2, even rows are shaded by default (e.g., stripes=even). Since Asciidoctor 2, table stripes are not enabled by default (e.g., stripes=none).

Index

The keys in this category control the style of the autogenerated index section.

Key	Value Type	Example
Key Prefix: index
columns	Integer (default: 2)	index: columns: 2

Footnotes

The keys in this category control the style of the footnotes list at the end of the chapter (book) or document (otherwise). If the footnotes-title attribute is specified, it is styled as a block caption. The styling of the links is controlled by the global link styles.

Key	Value Type	Example
Key Prefix: footnotes
font-color	Color (default: $base-font-color)	footnotes: font-color: #cccccc
font-size	Number (default: 9)	footnotes: font-size: 8
font-style	Font style (default: $base-font-style)	footnotes: font-style: italic
item-spacing	Measurement (default: 3)	footnotes: item-spacing: 5
margin-top	Measurement (default: 0)	footnotes: margin-top: 10
text-transform	Text transform (default: inherit)	footnotes: text-transform: lowercase

Table of Contents (TOC)

The keys in this category control the arrangement and style of the table of contents.

Key	Value Type	Example
Key Prefix: toc
font-color	Color (default: inherit)	toc: font-color: #333333
font-family	Font family name (default: inherit)	toc: font-family: Noto Serif
font-kerning	normal \| none (default: inherit)	toc: font-kerning: none
font-size	Number (default: inherit)	toc: font-size: 9
font-style	Font style (default: normal)	toc: font-style: bold
text-decoration	Text decoration (default: none)	toc: text-decoration: underline
text-decoration-color	Color (default: $toc-font-color)	toc text-decoration-color: #cccccc
text-decoration-width	Number (default: $base-text-decoration-width)	toc: text-decoration-width: 0.5
text-transform	Text transform (default: inherit)	toc: text-transform: uppercase
line-height	Number (default: 1.4)	toc: line-height: 1.5
indent	Measurement (default: 15)	toc: indent: 20
hanging-indent	Measurement (default: not set)	toc: hanging-indent: 0.5in
margin-top	Measurement (default: 0)	toc: margin-top: 0
Key Prefix: toc-h<n>^[1]
font-color	Color (default: inherit)	toc: h3-font-color: #999999
font-family	Font family name (default: inherit)	toc: h2-font-family: Noto Serif
font-kerning	normal \| none (default: inherit)	toc: h3-font-kerning: none
font-size	Number (default: inherit)	toc: h3-font-size: 9
font-style	Font style (default: inherit)	toc: h2-font-style: italic
text-transform	Text transform (default: inherit)	toc: h3-text-transform: uppercase
Key Prefix: toc-title
align	Text alignment (default: $heading-h2-align)	toc: title: align: right
font-color	Color (default: $heading-h2-font-color)	toc: title: font-color: #aa0000
font-family	Font family name (default: $heading-h2-font-family)	toc: title: font-family: Noto Serif
font-kerning	normal \| none (default: inherit)	toc: title: font-kerning: none
font-size	Number (default: $heading-h2-font-size)	toc: title: font-size: 18
font-style	Font style (default: $heading-h2-font-style)	toc: title: font-style: bold_italic
text-transform	Text transform (default: $heading-h2-text-transform)	sidebar: title: text-transform: uppercase
Key Prefix: toc-dot-leader
content	Quoted string (default: '. ')	toc: dot-leader: content: ". "
font-color^[2]	Color (default: inherit)	toc: dot-leader: font-color: #999999
font-style^[2]	Font style (default: normal)	toc: dot-leader: font-style: bold
levels^[3]	all \| none \| Integers (space-separated) (default: all)	toc: dot-leader: levels: 2 3

<n> is a number ranging from 1 to 6, representing each of the six heading levels.
The dot leader inherits all font properties except font-style from the root toc category.
0-based levels (e.g., part = 0, chapter = 1). Dot leaders are only shown for the specified levels. If value is not specified, dot leaders are shown for all levels.

Running Content (Header & Footer)

The keys in this category control the arrangement and style of running header and footer content. Please note that the running content will not be used unless a) the periphery (header or footer) is configured and b) the height key for the periphery is assigned a value.

🔥	If the height of the running content periphery is taller than the page margin, the running content will cover the main content. To avoid this problem, reduce the height of the running content periphery or make the page margin on that side larger.

Key	Value Type	Example
Key Prefix: header
background-color^[1]	Color (default: not set)	header: background-color: #eeeeee
background-image	image macro (default: not set)	header: background-image: image:running-content.svg[fit=contain]
border-color	Color (default: not set)	header: border-color: #dddddd
border-style	solid \| double \| dashed \| dotted (default: solid)	header: border-style: dashed
border-width	Measurement (default: $base-border-width)	header: border-width: 0.25
font-color	Color (default: inherit)	header: font-color: #333333
font-family	Font family name (default: inherit)	header: font-family: Noto Serif
font-kerning	normal \| none (default: inherit)	header: font-kerning: none
font-size	Number (default: inherit)	header: font-size: 9
font-style	Font style (default: inherit)	header: font-style: italic
height^[2]	Measurement (default: not set)	header: height: 0.75in
line-height	Number (default: $base-line-height)	header: line-height: 1.2
margin	Measurement \| Measurement[top,right,bottom (n/a),left] (default: [0, inherit])	header: margin: 0
content-margin	Measurement \| Measurement[top,right,bottom,left] (default: [0, inherit])	header: content-margin: 0
padding^[3]	Measurement \| Measurement[top,right,bottom,left] (default: 0)	header: padding: [0, 3, 0, 3]
image-vertical-align	top \| middle \| bottom \| Measurement (default: not set)	header: image-vertical-align: 4
sectlevels^[4]	Integer (default: 2)	header: sectlevels: 3
text-transform	Text transform (default: none)	header: text-transform: uppercase
title-style	document \| toc \| basic (default: document)	header: title-style: toc
vertical-align	top \| middle \| bottom \| [top \| middle \| bottom, Measurement] (default: middle)	header: vertical-align: middle
<side>-columns^[5]	Column specs triple (default: not set)	header: recto: columns: <25% =50% >25%
<side>-margin^[5]	Measurement \| Measurement[top,right,bottom (n/a),left] (default: inherit)	header: recto: margin: [0, 0, 0, inherit]
<side>-content-margin^[5]	Measurement \| Measurement[top,right,bottom,left] (default: inherit)	header: recto: content-margin: [0, 0, 0, inherit]
<side>-padding^[5]	Measurement \| Measurement[top,right,bottom,left] (default: inherit)	header: recto: padding: [0, 3, 0, 3]
<side>-<position>-content^[5,6]	Quoted string (default: '{page-number}')	header: recto: left: content: '\{page-number}'
Key Prefix: footer
background-color^[1]	Color (default: not set)	footer: background-color: #eeeeee
background-image	image macro (default: not set)	footer: background-image: image:running-content.svg[fit=contain]
border-color	Color (default: not set)	footer: border-color: #dddddd
border-style	solid \| double \| dashed \| dotted (default: solid)	footer: border-style: dashed
border-width	Measurement (default: $base-border-width)	footer: border-width: 0.25
font-color	Color (default: inherit)	footer: font-color: #333333
font-family	Font family name (default: inherit)	footer: font-family: Noto Serif
font-kerning	normal \| none (default: inherit)	footer: font-kerning: none
font-size	Number (default: inherit)	footer: font-size: 9
font-style	Font style (default: inherit)	footer: font-style: italic
height^[2]	Measurement (default: not set)	footer: height: 0.75in
line-height	Number (default: $base-line-height)	footer: line-height: 1.2
margin	Measurement \| Measurement[top (n/a),right,bottom,left] (default: [0, inherit])	footer: margin: 0
content-margin	Measurement \| Measurement[top,right,bottom,left] (default: [0, inherit])	footer: content-margin: 0
padding^[3]	Measurement \| Measurement[top,right,bottom,left] (default: 0)	footer: padding: [0, 3, 0, 3]
image-vertical-align	top \| middle \| bottom \| Measurement (default: not set)	footer: image-vertical-align: 4
sectlevels^[4]	Integer (default: 2)	footer: sectlevels: 3
text-transform	Text transform (default: none)	footer: text-transform: uppercase
title-style	document \| toc \| basic (default: document)	footer: title-style: toc
vertical-align	top \| middle \| bottom \| [top \| middle \| bottom, Measurement] (default: middle)	footer: vertical-align: top
<side>-columns^[5]	Column specs triple (default: not set)	footer: verso: columns: <50% =0% <50%
<side>-margin^[5]	Measurement \| Measurement[top (n/a),right,bottom,left] (default: [0, inherit])	footer: verso: margin: [0, inherit, 0, 0]
<side>-content-margin^[5]	Measurement \| Measurement[top,right,bottom,left] (default: inherit)	footer: verso: content-margin: [0, inherit, 0, 0]
<side>-padding^[5]	Measurement \| Measurement[top,right,bottom,left] (default: inherit)	footer: verso: padding: [0, 3, 0, 3]
<side>-<position>-content^[5,6]	Quoted string (default: '{page-number}')	footer: verso: center: content: '\{page-number}'
Key Prefix: running-content
start-at^[7]	title \| toc \| after-toc \| body \| Integer (default: body)	running-content: start-at: toc

To make the background color and border span the width of the page, set the margin to 0 (and adjust the content-margin accordingly).
If the height is not set, the running content at this periphery is disabled.
Do not use negative margins. Instead, adjust the values of the margin and content-margin keys.
The maximum section level considered when assigning the implicit section-title attribute (and related) available to the running content.
<side> can be recto (right-hand, odd-numbered pages) or verso (left-hand, even-numbered pages). The columns key can also be defined one level up (on header or footer), in which case the setting will be inherited. Where the page sides fall in relation to the physical or printed page number is controlled using the pdf-folio-placement attribute (except when media=prepress, which implies physical).
<position> can be left, center or right.
The title, toc, and after-toc values are only recognized if the title page is enabled (i.e., doctype is book or title-page attribute is set) The toc value only applies if the toc is in the default location (before the first page of the body). If value is toc, and the toc macro is used to position the toc, the start-at behavior is the same as if the toc is not enabled. If value is after-toc, the running content will start after the toc, no matter where it’s placed in the document. To disable the running content on toc pages inserted by the toc macro, set the noheader and/or nofooter options on the macro (e.g., toc::[opts=nofooter]). If value is an integer, the running content will start at the specified page of the body (i.e., 1 is first page, 2 is second page, etc.)

❗	If you don’t specify a height for either the header or footer key, it effectively disables the content at that periphery.

💡

Although not listed in the table above, you can control the font settings (font-family, font-size, font-color, font-style, text-transform) that get applied to the running content in each column position for each page side (e.g., footer-<side>-<position>-font-color). For example, you can set the font color used for the right-hand column on recto pages by setting footer-recto-right-font-color: 6CC644.

Disabling

If you define running header and footer content in your theme (including the height), you can still disable this content per document by setting the noheader and nofooter attributes in the AsciiDoc document header, respectively.

If you extend either the base or default theme, and don’t specify content for the footer, the current page number will be added to the right side on recto pages and the left side on verso pages. To disable this behavior, you can use the following snippet:

extends: default
footer:
  recto:
    right:
      content: ~
  verso:
    left:
      content: ~

Instead of erasing the content (which is what the ~ does), you can specify content of your choosing.

Replacing

If you want to replace the alternating page numbers with a centered page number, then you can restrict the footer to a single column and specify the content for the center position.

extends: default
footer:
  columns: =100%
  recto:
    center:
      content: '{page-number}'
  verso:
    center:
      content: '{page-number}'

In the last two examples, the recto and verso both have the same content. In this case, you can reduce the amount of configuring using a YAML reference. For example:

extends: default
footer:
  columns: =100%
  recto: &shared_footer
    center:
      content: '{page-number}'
  verso: *shared_footer

The &shared_footer assigns an ID to the YAML subtree under the recto key and the *shared_footer outputs a copy of it under the verso key. This technique can be used throughout the theme file as it’s a core feature of YAML.

Attribute References

You can use any attribute defined in your AsciiDoc document (such as doctitle) in the content of the running header and footer. In addition, the following attributes are also available when defining the content keys in the footer:

page-count
page-number (only set if the pagenums attribute is set on the document, which it is by default)
page-layout
document-title
document-subtitle
part-title
chapter-title
section-title
section-or-chapter-title

If you reference an attribute which is not defined, all the text on that same line in the running content will be dropped. This feature allows you to have alternate lines that are selected when all the attribute references are satisfied. One case where this is useful is when referencing the page-number attribute. If you unset the pagenums attribute on the document, any line in the running content that makes reference to {page-number} will be dropped.

You can also use built-in AsciiDoc text replacements like (C), numeric character references like ©, hexadecimal character references like €, and inline formatting (e.g., bold, italic, monospace).

Here’s an example that shows how attributes and replacements can be used in the running footer:

header:
  height: 0.75in
  line-height: 1
  recto:
    center:
      content: '(C) ACME -- v{revnumber}, {docdate}'
  verso:
    center:
      content: $header-recto-center-content
footer:
  background-image: image:running-content-bg-{page-layout}.svg[]
  height: 0.75in
  line-height: 1
  recto:
    right:
      content: '{section-or-chapter-title} | *{page-number}*'
  verso:
    left:
      content: '*{page-number}* | {chapter-title}'

Multiple Lines

You can split the content value across multiple lines using YAML’s multiline string syntax. In this case, the single quotes around the string are not necessary. To force a hard line break in the output, add + to the end of the line in normal AsciiDoc fashion.

footer:
  height: 0.75in
  line-height: 1.2
  recto:
    right:
      content: |
        Section Title - Page Number +
        {section-or-chapter-title} - {page-number}
  verso:
    left:
      content: |
        Page Number - Chapter Title +
        {page-number} - {chapter-title}

💡	You can use most AsciiDoc inline formatting in the values of these keys. For instance, to make the text bold, surround it in asterisks (as shown above). One exception to this rule are inline images, which are described in the next section.

Images

You can add an image to the running header or footer using the AsciiDoc inline image syntax. The image target is resolved relative to the value of the pdf-themesdir attribute. If the image macro is the whole value for a column position, you can use the position and fit attributes to align and scale it relative to the column box. Otherwise, the image is treated like a normal inline image, for which you can only adjust the width.

Here’s an example of how to use an image in the running header (which also applies for the footer).

header:
  height: 0.75in
  image-vertical-align: 2 # # (1)
  recto:
    center:
      content: image:footer-logo.png[width=80]
  verso:
    center:
      content: $header-recto-center-content

You can use the image-vertical-align key to slightly nudge the image up or down.

🔥

By default, the image must fit in the allotted space for the running header or footer. Otherwise, you will run into layout issues. Adjust the width attribute accordingly using the pdfwidth attribute. Alternatively, you can set the fit attribute to scale-down (e.g., fit=scale-down) to reduce the image size to fit in the available space or contain (i.e., fit=contain) to scale the image (up or down) to fit the available space.

Applying Your Theme

After creating a theme, you’ll need to tell Asciidoctor PDF where to find it. This is done using AsciiDoc attributes.

There are three AsciiDoc attributes that tell Asciidoctor PDF how to locate and apply your theme.

pdf-theme: The name of the YAML theme file to load. If the name ends with .yml, it’s assumed to be the complete name of a file and is resolved relative to pdf-themesdir, if specified, otherwise the current directory. Otherwise, -theme.yml is appended to the name to make the file name (i.e., <name>-theme.yml) and is resolved relative to pdf-themesdir, if specified, otherwise the built-in themes dir.
pdf-themesdir: The directory where the theme file is located. Specifying an absolute path is recommended.

If you use images in your theme, image paths are resolved relative to this directory. If pdf-theme ends with .yml, and pdf-themesdir is not specified, then pdf-themesdir defaults to the directory of the path specified by pdf-theme.
pdf-fontsdir: The directory or directories where the fonts used by your theme, if any, are located. Multiple entries must be separated by either a comma or a semi-colon. To reference a file inside a JAR file on the classpath, prefix with the path with uri:classloader: (AsciidoctorJ only). Specifying an absolute path is recommended.

Let’s assume that you’ve put your theme files inside a directory named resources with the following layout:

document.adoc
resources/
  themes/
    basic-theme.yml
  fonts/
    roboto-normal.ttf
    roboto-italic.ttf
    roboto-bold.ttf
    roboto-bold_italic.ttf

Here’s how you’d load your theme when calling Asciidoctor PDF:

$ asciidoctor-pdf -a pdf-themesdir=resources/themes -a pdf-theme=basic -a pdf-fontsdir=resources/fonts

If all goes well, Asciidoctor PDF should run without an error or warning.

📎	You only need to specify the `pdf-fontsdir` if you’re using custom fonts in your theme.

You can skip setting the pdf-themesdir attribute and just pass the absolute path of your theme file to the pdf-theme attribute.

$ asciidoctor-pdf -a pdf-theme=resources/themes/basic-theme.yml -a pdf-fontsdir=resources/fonts

However, in this case, image paths in your theme won’t be resolved properly.

Paths are resolved relative to the current directory. However, in the future, this may change so that paths are resolved relative to the base directory (typically the document’s directory). Therefore, it’s recommend that you specify absolute paths for now to future-proof your configuration.

$ asciidoctor-pdf -a pdf-themesdir=/path/to/resources/themes -a pdf-theme=basic -a pdf-fontsdir=/path/to/resources/fonts

As usual, you can also use build tools like Maven and Gradle to build a themed PDF. The only thing you need to add to an existing build is the attributes mentioned above.

Maven Example
Gradle Example

Speaking of Java, you can bundle and distribute your theme and fonts in a jar file. To reference the theme file and/or directory of fonts from inside the jar, refer to their location on the classpath using the uri:classloader: prefix. Here’s how you’d load both the theme and fonts from the classpath:

$ asciidoctorj -b pdf -a pdf-theme="uri:classloader:/path/to/themes/my-theme.yml" -a pdf-fontsdir="uri:classloader:/path/to/fonts" document.adoc

This only works when running Asciidoctor PDF on the JVM.

Theme-Related Document Attributes

There are various settings in the theme you control using document attributes. These settings override equivalent keys defined in the theme file, where applicable.

Attribute	Value Type	Example
autofit-option	flag (default: not set)	:autofit-option:
chapter-signifier	string (default: Chapter)	:chapter-signifier: Chapitre
<face>-cover-image^[1]	path^[2] \| image macro^[3] (format can be image or PDF)	:front-cover-image: image:front-cover.pdf[]
hyphens^[7]	language code \| blank to default to en_us (default: not set)	:hyphens: de
icons^[13]	font \| image (default: not set)	:icons: font
media	screen \| print \| prepress	:media: prepress
compress	flag (default: not set)	:compress:
optimize	screen \| ebook \| printer \| prepress \| default (default: default)	:optimize: prepress
outlinelevels^[12]	Integer \| Integer:Integer (default: same as toclevels)	:outlinelevels: 2
page-background-image^[4]	path^[2] \| image macro^[3]	:page-background-image: image:bg.jpg[]
page-background-image-(recto\|verso)^[4]	path^[2] \| image macro^[3]	:page-background-image-recto: image:bg-recto.jpg[]
page-foreground-image	path^[2] \| image macro^[3]	:page-foreground-image: image:watermark.svg[]
pagenums^[5]	flag (default: set)	:pagenums:
part-signifier	string (default: Part)	:part-signifier: Partie
pdf-page-layout	portrait \| landscape	:pdf-page-layout: landscape
pdf-page-margin	Measurement \| Measurement[top,right,bottom,left]	:pdf-page-margin: [1in, 0.5in]
pdf-page-mode	outline \| none \| thumbs \| fullscreen \| fullscreen outline \| fullscreen none \| fullscreen thumbs (default: outline)	:pdf-page-mode: fullscreen none
pdf-page-size	Named size \| Measurement[width, height]	:pdf-page-size: [6in, 9in]
pdf-folio-placement	virtual \| virtual-inverted \| physical \| physical-inverted	:pdf-folio-placement: physical
pdf-version	1.3 \| 1.4 \| 1.5 \| 1.6 \| 1.7 (default: 1.4)	:pdf-version: 1.7
pdfmark^[6]	flag (default: not set)	:pdfmark:
scripts^[8]	cjk (default: not set)	:scripts: cjk
text-align^[9]	Text alignment	:text-align: left
title-logo-image	path^[2] \| image macro^[3]	:title-logo-image: image:logo.png[top=25%, align=center, pdfwidth=0.5in]
title-page^[10]	flag (default: not set)	:title-page:
title-page-background-image	path^[2] \| image macro^[3]	:title-page-background-image: image:title-bg.jpg[]
toc-max-pagenum-digits^[11]	Integer (default: 3)	:toc-max-pagenum-digits: 4

<face> can be front or back.
A bare path is resolved relative to base_dir, which defaults to the document directory.
The target of the image macro is resolved relative to imagesdir since it’s defined in the AsciiDoc document (unlike in the theme, where it is resolved relative to the value of pdf-themesdir).
By default, page background images are automatically scaled to fit the bounds of the page (i.e., fit=contain) and centered (i.e., position=center). The size of the background image can be controlled using any of the sizing attributes on the image macro (i.e., fit, pdfwidth, scaledwidth, or width) when fit=none. The position of the background image can be controlled using the position attribute. If the recto (right-hand, odd-numbered pages) or verso (left-hand, even-numbered pages) background is specified, it will be used only for that side. If a background image isn’t specified for a side, the converter will use the default page background image (page-background-image), if specified. To disable the background image for a side, use the value none.
Controls whether the implicit page-number attribute is to the running header and footer content specified in the theme file. Instead of disabling page numbers, you can use the noheader and nofooter attributes to disable the running header and footer, respectively.
Enables generation of the pdfmark file, which contains metadata that can be fed to Ghostscript when optimizing the PDF file. If you’re using Ghostscript >= 8.54, this feature is not needed.
Activates hyphenation for the language code specified (defaults to en_us).
Activates line break rules for CJK languages (specifically Chinese and Japanese). Chinese and Japanese are written without spaces (and may not use spaces when mixing with English words either). This setting allows a line break to be placed between any two CJK characters to accommodate wrapping. These languages also use different punctuation for pause, full stop, and dash, which are taken into account when breaking lines.
(Experimental) The text-align document attribute is intended as a simple way to toggle text justification. The value of this attribute overrides the base-align key set by the theme. For more fine-grained control, you should customize using the theme.
The title page is only enabled by default for the book doctype. To force the title page to be used for other doctypes, set the title-page attribute in the document header.
If the TOC overlaps the first page of content, increase this number.
The second number in the value of outlinelevels is the number of levels of the outline to expand (e.g., 3:1). If the second number is not present, all levels are expanded.
By default, admonitions have a text-based label that matches the admonition type. To use icons instead, set the icons attribute to font. This setting allows the theme to control the icon used for each type (see the admonition-icon key). It also enables the icon macro (covered in the README). To use local image filees, set the icons attribute to image. Note that if the value of the icons attribute is image, the icon macro will produce text-based output.

Page Numbering

The converter automatically keeps track of page numbers. These page numbers are available as metadata and determine folio placement (recto/verso pages).

By default, the converter assigns the page number 1 to the first body page of the document. It then increments the page number for each page thereafter. All front matter pages that precede the first body page in the book doctype (or when the title-page attribute is set) (e.g., cover page, title page, and toc pages) are numbered using roman numerals (e.g., i, ii, iii, etc). Since these computed page numbers can differ from the physical page numbers, we refer to them as virtual page numbers.

By default, the folio placement is derived from the virtual page number. Odd page numbers (e.g., 1, 3, 5, …) designate recto pages and even page numbers (e.g., 2, 4, 6, …) designate verso pages.

It’s possible to influence the virtual page numbering using a combination of the theme and document attributes. One such customization is to control where the transition from roman numerals to integers occurs.

The theme can specify the page where the integer (1-based) page numbering should begin using the page-numbering-start-at key. For instance, the theme can specify page-numbering-start-at: title, which will make the integer page numbering start at the title page when enabled (i.e., the title page will be assigned the virtual page number 1). Alternately, the theme can specify an offset from the first body page where the page numbering should begin (all doctypes). For instance, page-numbering-start-at: 2 tells the converter to assign the virtual page number 1 to the second page of the body. Any page that precedes that page will be numbered using roman numerals.

Changing the page on which the integer page numbering begins can alter to folio placement. To correct for this, or to change the folio placement in general, you can use the pdf-folio-placement document attribute. For instance, to base the folio placement on physical page numbers, set the value of this attribute to physical (e.g., pdf-folio-placement=physical). To invert the recto and verso pages, add the -inverted qualifier to the value (e.g., pdf-folio-placement=physical-inverted).

The default theme shows the virtual page number in the footer of all body pages. If you’re starting with a blank theme, you can add the page number by using the {page-number} attribute reference in the content key of the running content (header or footer). For example:

footer:
  recto:
    right:
      content: '\{page-number}'

If you want the running content to also appear on front matter pages, you can use the theme to change the page on which the running content starts with the running-content-start-at key. For instance, to start the running content on the title page, assuming the title page is enabled, set running-content-start-at: title in your theme file.

Aside from the configurability mentioned, the page numbering logic is computed automatically.

Printing Mode (print)

Asciidoctor PDF provides the following behaviors to assist with printing:

Shows the URL for links (unless the linked text matches the URL)
Consolidates page ranges in the index
Disables links from page numbers in index to location of term in document

You activate these printing features by setting the media attribute to print in the header of your AsciiDoc document (e.g., :media: print) or from the API or CLI (e.g., -a media=print). You may also want to consider using the print-optimized theme, which uses darker, grayscale colors for text and borders (e.g., -a pdf-theme=default-for-print).

Publishing Mode (prepress)

In addition to the printing mode behaviors, Asciidoctor PDF provides the following behaviors to assist with publishing:

Double-sided (mirror) page margins
Automatic facing pages

You activate these publishing (aka prepress) features by setting the media attribute to prepress in the header of your AsciiDoc document (e.g., :media: prepress) or from the API or CLI (e.g., -a media=prepress). The following sections describe the behaviors that this setting activates. You may also want to consider using the print-optimized theme, which uses darker, grayscale colors for text and borders (e.g., -a pdf-theme=default-for-print).

Double-Sided Page Margins

The page margins for the recto (right-hand, odd-numbered) and verso (left-hand, even-numbered) pages are automatically calculated by replacing the side page margins with the values of the page-margin-inner and page-margin-outer keys.

For example, let’s assume you’ve defined the following settings in your theme:

page:
  margin: [0.5in, 0.67in, 0.67in, 0.67in]
  margin-inner: 0.75in
  margin-outer: 0.59in

The page margins for the recto and verso pages will be resolved as follows:

recto page margin: [0.5in, 0.59in, 0.67in, 0.75in]
verso page margin: [0.5in, 0.75in, 0.67in, 0.59in]

The page margins alternate between recto and verso. The first page in the document (after the cover) is a recto page.

If no cover is specified, the recto margin is not applied to the title page. To apply the recto margin to the title page, but not include a cover, assign the value ~ to the front-cover-image attribute.

Automatic Facing Pages

When converting the book doctype using the prepress media setting, a blank page will be inserted when necessary to ensure the following elements start on a recto page:

Title page
Table of contents
First page of body
Parts and chapters

Other “facing” pages may be added in the future.

It’s possible to disable the automatic facing feature for a given part or chapter. This can be done by adding the nonfacing option to the section node. When the nonfacing option is present, the part or chapter title will be placed on the next adjacent page rather than the next facing page.

[%nonfacing]
= Minor Chapter

content

For documents that use the article doctype, Asciidoctor PDF incorrectly places the document title and table of contents on their own pages. This can result in the page numbering and the page facing to be out of sync. As a workaround, Asciidoctor PDF inserts a blank page, if necessary, to ensure the first page of body content is a recto-facing page.

You can check on the status of this defect by following issue #95.

Source Highlighting Theme

When using Rouge as the source highlighter, you can apply a bundled theme (aka style) to your source blocks or define and apply your own.

Using a Highlighting Theme

Rouge bundles several themes you can use to colorize your source blocks. To use one of these themes, first set the value of the source-highlighter document attribute to rouge. Then, specify the desired theme using the rouge-style document attribute.

The following example demonstrates how to apply the monokai theme from Rouge to source blocks.

:source-highlighter: rouge
:rouge-style: monokai

You can generate a list of all available themes by running the following command:

$ ruby -e 'require :rouge.to_s; puts Rouge::Theme.registry.keys.sort.join ?\n'

You can also find the list of themes in the Rouge source repository at https://github.com/rouge-ruby/rouge/tree/master/lib/rouge/themes.

If the bundled themes don’t suit your needs, you can define one of your own.

Custom Highlighting Theme

A custom theme for Rouge is defined using a Ruby class. Start by creating a Ruby source file to define your theme. Name the file according to the name of your theme and put the file in a folder of your choice (e.g., rouge_themes/custom.rb). The name of the Ruby class doesn’t matter, though it’s customary to name it according to the name of the theme as well.

rouge_themes/custom.rb

require 'rouge' unless defined? ::Rouge.version

module Rouge; module Themes
  class Custom < CSSTheme
    name 'custom'

    style Comment,           fg: '#008800', italic: true
    style Error,             fg: '#a61717', bg: '#e3d2d2'
    style Str,               fg: '#0000ff'
    style Str::Char,         fg: '#800080'
    style Num,               fg: '#0000ff'
    style Keyword,           fg: '#000080', bold: true
    style Operator::Word,    bold: true
    style Name::Tag,         fg: '#000080', bold: true
    style Name::Attribute,   fg: '#ff0000'
    style Generic::Deleted,  fg: '#000000', bg: '#ffdddd', inline_block: true, extend: true
    style Generic::Inserted, fg: '#000000', bg: '#ddffdd', inline_block: true, extend: true
    style Text, {}
  end
end; end

Each style declaration accepts the following properties:

fg - sets the foreground (text) color
bg - sets the background color
bold - change the font weight to bold
italic - change the font style to italic
underline - add an underline to the text
inline_block - fill the background color to the height of the line (Asciidoctor PDF only)
extend - extend the background color to the end of the line for a line-oriented match (Asciidoctor PDF only)

Colors are defined using hexadecimal format (e.g., #ff0000 for red).

Use the Text token to set the background color of the source block and the default text color.

The complete list of tokens can be found in the token.rb file from Rouge. Refer to the bundled themes to find more examples.

Once you’ve defined your theme, you need to enable it use it using the rouge-style document attribute, which you specify in the document header or via the Asciidoctor CLI or API.

:source-highlighter: rouge
:rouge-style: custom

Finally, you need to active your theme by requiring the theme file when you invoke Asciidoctor.

$ asciidoctor -r ./rouge_themes/custom.rb sample.adoc

You should now see that the source code is highlighted to your liking. For more information about source highlighting with Rouge, refer to the Rouge project page.

Extending the Converter

This converter uses Prawn under the covers to generate the PDF. Prawn is a low-level PDF writer that can load fonts, ink text, embed images, add graphics, and draw lines. With those operations alone, this converter manages to produce a PDF from an AsciiDoc document. This section explains the role of theming in this process and how to extend the converter to take it further.

Going Beyond Theming

While creating the PDF document, there are thousands of small decisions the converter must make about how to instruct Prawn to layout the content elements on the page (so-called “hackable typesetting”). But once these elements are written, they can’t be moved or styled (as is the case with HTML and CSS). To help influence those decisions—and thus prevent the converter from becoming too opinionated, a theming system was introduced. That theming system is described in this document.

The theme support is there to provide basic customizations (fonts, colors, borders, spacing, etc.). But it can only go so far. At some point, it becomes necessary to extend the converter to meet advanced design requirements.

Before you dive into extending this converter, you’ll need to understand how to use Prawn. The article Hackable PDF Typesetting in Ruby with Prawn gives a crash course in how to create your first PDF document containing text, graphics, and images with Prawn. That article is essential reading for working with Asciidoctor PDF, which uses many of the same operations (as well as many helpful add-ons). Once you feel comfortable with Prawn, you’re ready to extend the converter.

Tailoring Conversion

The methods on a converter class that handle conversion follow the pattern convert_<name> for block elements (e.g., convert_example) and convert_inline_<name> for inline elements (e.g., convert_inline_anchor), where <name> is the name of the element.

When you override a block element, you write PDF objects directly to the Prawn Document (the current context). When you override an inline element, you return pseudo-HTML, which is then parsed and converted into PDF objects.

The pseudo-HTML in Asciidoctor PDF evolved from the inline formatting in Prawn, now supporting the following elements: a, br, button, code, color, del, em, font, img, key, mark, span, strong, sub, sup. All decimal and hexadecimal character references are supported, as well as the named entities amp, apos, gt, lt, nbsp, and quot (e.g., '). You can change the font color using the rgb attribute on the color element (e.g., <color rgb="#ff0000">) and the font family and size using the name and size attributes on the font element, respectively (e.g., ). You can also use the style attribute on span to control the font color, weight, and style using the relevant CSS property names. The pseudo-HTML in Asciidoctor PDF also supports the class attribute on any element for applying roles from the theme. (Though not recommended, you can pass this pseudo-HTML straight through to Prawn using an inline passthrough in AsciiDoc).

Defining the Extended Converter

Starting with Asciidoctor 2, defining an extending converter and registering it in place of the original is very straightforward.

custom-pdf-converter.rb

class CustomPDFConverter < (Asciidoctor::Converter.for 'pdf')
  register_for 'pdf'

  # overrides go here
end

As it stands, the converter doesn’t do anything differently than the primary converter because we haven’t yet overridden any of its methods. Let’s do that now, starting by overriding the thematic break (aka horizontal rule) to make it render like a ribbon:

  def convert_thematic_break node
    theme_margin :thematic_break, :top
    stroke_horizontal_rule 'FF0000', line_width: 0.5, line_style: :solid
    move_down 1
    stroke_horizontal_rule 'FF0000', line_width: 1, line_style: :solid
    move_down 1
    stroke_horizontal_rule 'FF0000', line_width: 0.5, line_style: :solid
    theme_margin :thematic_break, :bottom
  end

This converter will replace the thematic break with a red ribbon.

Another way to override the converter is to modify the node, then delegate back to the primary converter. Let’s put a page break before all paragraphs unless the cursor is at the top of the page. We’ll call super to let the primary converter handle the work of rendering the paragraph.

  def convert_paragraph node
    bounds.move_past_bottom unless at_page_top?
    super
  end

Now let’s look at how to modify an inline element. Let’s say we want to override the kbd element.

  def convert_inline_kbd node
    %(<strong><color rgb="AA0000">#{(node.attr 'keys').join ' + '}</color></strong>)
  end

Refer to the primary converter to discover the pseudo-HTML you can use for inline elements.

So far we’ve just been biting around the edges. A more realistic use case is to customize the part title page in a multi-part book. Since this is a specialized section element, there’s a dedicated method named layout_part_title that you’ll need to override.

Let’s customize the part title page by making the background orange, making the font white, centering the title on the page, and disabling the running content. (You don’t need to start a new page before and after the part title since that’s already done for you).

  def layout_part_title node, title, opts = {}
    fill_absolute_bounds 'E64C3D'
    move_down 20
    typeset_text title, (calc_line_metrics 1.5), color: 'FFFFFF', inline_format: true, align: :center, size: 42
    page.instance_variable_set :@imported_page, true
  end

The method typeset_text and calc_line_metrics are provided by Asciidoctor PDF to make writing text easier. If you wanted, you could just use the low-level text method provided by Prawn.

To find all the available methods to override, consult the API docs. For deeper examples of how to override the behavior of the converter, refer to the extended converter in the InfoQ Mini-Book template.

Now that you’ve seen some examples of how to extend the converter, let’s look at how to use it.

Using the Extended Converter

To use this converter, register it by passing the path to the -r flag when calling the asciidoctor-pdf command:

$ asciidoctor-pdf -r ./custom-pdf-converter.rb document.adoc

That’s all there is too it. Now you’re hacking the typesetting!

Appendix A: Preparing a Custom Font

Any TTF or OTF font can be used with Prawn—and hence Asciidoctor PDF—without modifications (unless, of course, it’s corrupt or contains errors). However, you may discover that kerning is disabled and certain required glyphs are missing (or replaced with boxes). To address these problems, you need to prepare the font using a font program such as FontForge. These instructions will cover how to prepare a TTF font, but the same applies for an OTF font.

Validate the Font

Before using the font, you may want to check that the font is valid. To do so, create the following script, which will verify that the font is free from errors.

validate-font.rb

require 'ttfunk'
require 'ttfunk/subset_collection'

ttf_subsets = TTFunk::SubsetCollection.new TTFunk::File.open ARGV[0]
(0...(ttf_subsets.instance_variable_get :@subsets).size).each {|idx| ttf_subsets[idx].encode }

Run the script on your font as follows:

$ ruby validate-font.rb path/to/font.ttf

If this script fails, the font will not work with Asciidoctor PDF. To repair it, open the font in FontForge and resave it using File › Generate Fonts… › Generate. Dismiss any warning dialogs.

Resaving the font in FontForge will usually resolve any errors in the font. (If not, you may need to find another font, or at least another copy of it).

Modifying the Font

To ready your font for use with Asciidoctor PDF, you’ll need to modify it using a font program. We recommend using FontForge. But don’t let this scare you off. FontForge essentially works like a vector-drawing tool, in which each character is a separate canvas. You can find a crash course in how to use the program on the FontForge project site.

Here are the modifications you need to apply to a custom font for it to work best with Asciidoctor PDF:

Convert the font to TTF or OTF (only required if the font is a TTC or other format not supported by Prawn).
Add the glyphs for the required characters if missing from the font (optional if using a fallback font).
Subset the font to exclude unused characters to reduce the file size (optional).
Save the file using the old-style kern table to activate kerning.

📎	Technically, subsetting the font (i.e., removing glyphs) is not required since Prawn only embeds the characters from the font used in the document (i.e., it automatically subsets the font). However, if you plan to commit the font to a repository, subsetting helps keep the file size down.

Most fonts do not provide glyphs for all the Unicode character ranges (i.e., scripts). (A glyph is the corresponding vector image for a Unicode character). In fact, many fonts only include glyphs for Latin (Basic, Supplement, and Extended) and a few other scripts (e.g., Cyrillic, Greek). That means certain glyphs Asciidoctor PDF relies on may be missing from the font.

Below are the non-Latin characters (identified by Unicode code point) on which Asciidoctor PDF relies that are often missing from fonts. Unless you’re using a fallback font that fills in the missing glyphs, you need to ensure these glyphs are present in your font (and add them if not).

\u00a0 - no-break space
\ufeff - zero width no-break space
\u200b - zero width space (used for line break hints)
\u000a - line feed character (zero width)
\u2009 - thin spaced (used in the button UI element)
\u202f - narrow no-break space (used in the keybinding UI element)
\u2011 - non-breaking hyphen
\u2022 - disc (used for first-level unordered list level)
\u25e6 - circle (used for second-level unordered list level)
\u25aa - square (used for third-level unordered list level)
\u2611 - ballot box checked (used for checked list item)
\u2610 - ballot box unchecked (used for unchecked list item)
\u2014 - em-dash (used in quote attribute)
\u203a - single right-pointing quotation mark (used in the menu UI element)
\u25ba - right pointer (used for media play icon when icon fonts are disabled)
.notdef - used as the default glyph when a requested character is missing from the font (usually a box)

📎	If the .notdef glyph is non-empty (i.e., contains splines), it will be used as the default glyph when the document requests a character that is missing from the font. Unlike other glyphs, the .notdef glyph is referenced by name only. It does not have a designated Unicode code point.

If you’re preparing a font for use in verbatim blocks (e.g., a listing block), you’ll also need this range of characters:

\u2460 to \u2468 - circled numbers

One way to get these glyphs is to steal them from another font (or from another character in the same font). To do so, open the other font in FontForge, select the character, press Ctrl+c, switch back to your font, select the character again, and press Ctrl+v. You may need to scale the glyph so it fits properly in the art box.

❗	If you’re copying a non-visible character, be sure to set the width to 0 using Metrics › Set Width…, enter 0 into Set Width To, then click OK.

When you’re done, save the font with the old-style kern table enabled. To do so, select File › Generate Fonts…, click Options, and make sure only the following options are selected (equivalent to the flags 0x90 + 0x08):

✓ OpenType
- ✓ Old style 'kern'

Then click Generate to generate and save the font.

Your font file is now ready to be used with Asciidoctor PDF.

Scripting the Font Modifications

Performing all this font modification manually can be tedious (not to mention hard to reproduce). Fortunately, FontForge provides a scripting interface, which you can use to automate the process.

In fact, that’s what we use to prepare the fonts that are bundled with Asciidoctor PDF. You can find that FontForge script, the Bash script that calls it, and the Docker image in which it is run in the scripts directory of this project. You can use that script as a starting point or reference for your own font preparation / modification script.

Key	Value Type	Example
Key Prefix: menu
caret-content	Quoted string (default: " \u203a ")	menu: caret-content: ' > '

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Asciidoctor PDF Theming Guide

Language Overview

Selectors and Properties

Basic Theme

Basic Extended Theme

Key Nesting

Values

Inheritance

Variables

Custom Variables

Math Expressions & Functions

Measurement Units

Alignments

Text Alignments

Text Decorations

Image Alignments

Font Styles

Text Transforms

Colors

Hex

RGB

CMYK

Transparent

Images

Quoted String

Fonts

Built-In (AFM) Fonts

Bundled Fonts

Custom Fonts

Selecting Your Font

Declaring Your Font

Configuring the Font Search Path

Subsetting Your Font

Fallback Fonts

Keys

Extends

Font

Extending the Font Catalog

Role

Cover

Page

Base

Vertical Spacing

Link

(Inline) Literal

Heading

Section

Title Page

Prose

Block

Caption

Code

Callout Numbers

Button

Key

Menu

Mark

Blockquote

Verse

Sidebar

Example

Admonition

Image

SVG

Lead

Abstract

Thematic Break

Description List

Outline List

Unordered List

Table

Index

Footnotes

Table of Contents (TOC)