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Readers Documentation

Everything you need to install, configure, and customize the Readers Ghost theme.

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Welcome to the Readers documentation. This guide covers everything you need to install, configure, and customize Readers — a Ghost theme built for writers, bloggers, and editorial publications who want an oversized masthead, a featured story front and center, and a calm, image-led reading experience.

Readers is built for Ghost 6.x and assumes a basic understanding of the Ghost platform. If you’re new to Ghost, we recommend the official Ghost Help Center before continuing.

Installation

You can install Readers directly from the Ghost admin panel.

  1. Download the Readers theme .zip file:
    • After purchase, you’ll receive your Purchase ID by email, sent to the email address you used for the purchase.
    • Go to trexthemes.dev/download-theme.
    • Enter the email address you used for the purchase and your Purchase ID.
    • Click the download link to get the Readers theme .zip file.
  2. In your Ghost admin, click Settings (the gear icon in the bottom left corner), then go to Site → Design & branding.
  3. Click Change theme.
  4. Click Upload theme and select the Readers .zip file you downloaded.
  5. Once uploaded, click Activate to enable Readers on your site.

You do not need to unzip the file — Ghost handles that automatically. The theme is now live.

Note: Uploading a custom theme .zip is not available on the Ghost(Pro) Starter plan. You’ll need a higher Ghost(Pro) plan or a self-hosted Ghost installation.

Routes

Readers works with the default Ghost routing. No custom routes.yaml file is required. All standard Ghost routes are supported out of the box:

  • Home — /
  • Post — /{slug}/
  • Tag — /tag/{slug}/
  • Author — /author/{slug}/
  • Page — /{slug}/

If you customize routes, you can upload your own routes.yaml under Settings → Advanced → Labs → Routes.

Readers uses Ghost’s built-in navigation, with two menus: Primary and Secondary. Both are configured under Settings → Site → Navigation.

Primary navigation

The primary menu opens from the menu icon on the right side of the header. Add links in the order you want them shown. Each link accepts:

  • Label — the visible link text (e.g., Home, About, Travel, Lifestyle)
  • URL — a full URL or a path like /about/

Secondary navigation

The secondary menu powers the inline links in the footer, displayed under the footer logo and separated by a slash (e.g., Sign up / Landing page / Tag). Links appear in the order you add them.

Tip: Ghost supports Portal links in navigation. For example, a Sign up item pointing to #/portal/signup opens the signup flow directly.

Basic settings

Publication title and description

Set your publication title and description under Settings → General → Title & description.

  • Title — used in browser tabs, meta data, and the copyright line. It is also displayed as text in place of the logo when no logo is uploaded.
  • Site description — displayed on the right side of the homepage intro, directly below the big logo. See Homepage intro.

The description is also used for meta descriptions and structured data, so keep it to one or two clean sentences — for example:

“Thoughts, stories and ideas shaped by everyday life, meaningful places and the people we meet along the way.”

Publication language

Set your publication language under Settings → General → Publication language. Readers uses it to load a matching translation file — see Translate.

Announcement bar

You can display a site-wide announcement at the very top of every page — useful for launches, sales, or important notices. Configure it under Settings → Site → Announcement bar:

  • Enter your announcement text
  • Choose a background style
  • Choose which visitors see it (visitors, free members, paid members)

Readers integrates Ghost’s native search. The search icon in the header opens the search overlay, where readers can search across posts, pages, tags, and authors.

Search is enabled by default and requires no configuration.

Add your profile URLs under Settings → General → Social accounts. Ghost 6 supports a range of platforms, including X, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Bluesky, Mastodon, TikTok, YouTube, and LinkedIn.

Any social field left empty is automatically hidden from your site. Your configured accounts appear as uppercase text links on the right side of the footer.

Customization

Open Settings → Site → Design & branding and click Customize to access all design options. Ghost’s own options live under the Brand tab, and Readers’ custom options live under the Theme tab.

Accent color

Set your accent color under Brand → Accent color. This color is used for links, buttons, highlights, and other interactive elements throughout your site.

Readers supports two separate accent colors — one for light mode (set here) and one for dark mode (set under Site wide → Accent color for dark mode).

Upload your logo under Brand → Publication logo. It appears in the top-left corner of the header and in the footer. If no logo is uploaded, Readers displays your publication title instead.

For best results, use a PNG or SVG with a transparent background.

Readers also supports a separate Logo for dark mode and an oversized Big logo for the homepage — see Dark mode and Big logo.

Icon

Your publication icon (the favicon) is configured under Brand → Publication icon. Ghost automatically generates the various favicon sizes needed by modern browsers.

Recommended: a square PNG, at least 60×60 px (512×512 px for the sharpest result).

Typography

Readers ships with a curated editorial type pairing — an elegant serif for headings, excerpts, and body text, and a clean uppercase sans-serif for labels, dates, and buttons. No fonts need to be uploaded.

If you want to change fonts beyond what Ghost’s Brand → Typography options provide, see the Edit theme section.

Site wide

The following options are found under Theme → Site wide and apply across your entire site.

Dark mode

Readers includes a dark color scheme. Two settings keep your brand legible on a dark background:

  • Accent color for dark mode — Set a lighter or more saturated version of your accent color so it stands out against dark surfaces.
  • Logo for dark mode — Upload a light-colored (e.g., white) version of your logo so it stays visible against the dark background.

The large masthead displayed across the top of the homepage, directly below the header.

  • Big logo — Upload a wide, high-resolution version of your logo or wordmark. A transparent PNG or SVG works best, since it is displayed at a very large size.
  • Big logo for dark mode — Upload a light-colored version of the big logo so it stays visible in dark mode.

If no big logo is uploaded, Readers displays your publication title in large display type instead.

Site slugan

A short tagline displayed on the left side of the homepage intro, below the big logo, opposite your site description. For example:

Where meaningful ideas become memorable stories

Keep it short — a single line or phrase reads best. Leave it empty to hide it.

Set the copyright line shown at the bottom of every page. You can use plain text or basic HTML — for example:

Published with <a href="https://ghost.org/" target="_blank">Ghost</a>

Readers displays it alongside the current year and your publication title (e.g., © 2026 Readers. Published with Ghost).

Homepage

Readers’ homepage has four distinct areas: a big logo masthead, a homepage intro, a featured post hero, and a latest posts grid with a Load more button.

The sticky header at the top of every page shows:

  • Logo — on the left. See Logo.
  • Search icon — opens Ghost’s search overlay. See Search.
  • Subscribe button — opens the Portal signup flow. Logged-in members see an account link instead.
  • Menu icon — opens the Primary navigation.

Big logo masthead

Below the header, Readers displays your brand at a very large size. The image comes from Big logo (or your publication title if no big logo is set).

Homepage intro

Directly below the masthead, a two-part intro introduces your publication:

Featured post hero

The first section after the intro highlights your latest featured post in a large two-column layout:

  • Featured post label
  • Publish date and author
  • Title — in large serif type
  • Excerpt — the custom excerpt from post settings, or the start of the post if none is set.
  • Feature image — displayed on the right.

To feature a post, open it in the Ghost editor, open Post settings, and turn on Feature this post.

Latest posts grid

Below the hero, your most recent posts are listed in a two-column grid. Each card shows:

  • Feature image — set in the post settings of the Ghost editor.
  • Author — e.g., By Harold Adams.
  • Title
  • Publish date and reading time — e.g., 09 September 2026 / 2 min read.
  • Excerpt — the custom excerpt from post settings, or the start of the post if none is set.
  • Primary tag — shown as a pill; the primary tag is the first tag on the post.
  • Read post link

Load more

Below the grid, a Load more articles button loads the next set of posts without reloading the page. A counter (e.g., Showing 10 of 12) shows how many posts are displayed out of the total. The button is hidden once all posts are loaded.

The number of posts loaded per page is set in the theme’s package.json — see Edit theme.

Post

Template

Readers uses a clean, readable post template by default. Individual posts can override this with a custom template — see the Ghost documentation on custom templates if you want per-post variations.

Post settings that affect the theme

Readers relies on Ghost’s standard post settings, so filling them in carefully makes your homepage look its best:

  • Feature image — shown in the featured post hero and on post cards. Use landscape images of similar proportions for a tidy grid.
  • Tags — the first tag becomes the primary tag shown as a pill on cards.
  • Excerpt — shown under the title in the hero and on post cards. Keep it to two or three lines.
  • Authors — the primary author is shown on the hero and on cards.
  • Feature this post — makes the post eligible for the featured post hero on the homepage.
  • Post access — controls who can read the full post. See Access.

Readers’ footer combines several configurable pieces.

Logo

The footer shows your publication logo on the left, pulled from Brand → Publication logo — no separate configuration is needed. In dark mode, the Logo for dark mode is used.

The slash-separated links under the footer logo come from the Secondary navigation menu. See the Navigation section for details.

The right side of the footer shows your social links on top and your copyright line below. See Social links and Copyright footer.

Membership

Readers integrates fully with Ghost’s built-in membership system.

Portal

Portal is Ghost’s native sign-in and subscription flow. All Subscribe buttons in Readers open Portal. Configure sign-up options under Settings → Membership → Portal settings.

Access

Set a post’s visibility (public, members, paid members, or specific tiers) under Post settings → Post access in the editor. Visitors without access see a preview of the post followed by a call-to-action to subscribe or upgrade.

Comments

Ghost’s native comments are supported on post pages. Enable comments under Settings → Membership → Commenting and choose whether comments are open to all members or only paid members.

Advanced

Edit theme

You can modify the theme source directly.

  1. Download the current Readers .zip from trexthemes.dev/download-theme or from Settings → Site → Design & branding → Change theme → Installed.
  2. Unzip the file. The assets/ folder contains CSS and JavaScript; templates use the Handlebars format (.hbs).
  3. Install Node.js v22.
  4. Open a terminal in the theme folder and install the dependencies:

npm install

  1. Start the development build. Readers uses Gulp to compile assets and watch for changes while you edit:

npm run start

  1. When you’re done, create the production build:

npm run build

The theme .zip file is created in the production/ folder. 7. Upload the new .zip to Ghost via Settings → Site → Design & branding → Change theme → Upload theme.

To change how many posts appear per page on the homepage, edit the posts_per_page value under config in package.json before building.

Keep the theme name in package.json unchanged — Ghost ties your custom theme settings to the theme name, and renaming it resets them to their defaults.

Only advanced users should modify the theme source. Custom edits are not covered by our support.

Translate

Readers is translation-ready. Interface text such as labels, buttons, and link text (e.g., Featured post, Read post, Load more articles, Subscribe) comes from locale files.

  1. Set your publication’s language under Settings → General → Publication language.
  2. Readers loads a matching locale file if one is available in locales/.
  3. To add a new language, create a .json file inside locales/ (e.g., fr.json) with translations for each key found in locales/en.json.

You can also edit locales/en.json to change the default English text — for example, the label on the Load more articles button.

Update theme

When a new version of Readers is released, you’ll receive an email notification. To update:

  1. Download the new .zip file:
    • Go to trexthemes.dev/download-theme.
    • Enter the email address you used for the purchase and your Purchase ID.
    • Click the download link to get the latest Readers theme .zip file.
  2. Upload it via Settings → Site → Design & branding → Change theme → Upload theme. Ghost will ask to overwrite the existing version — confirm to continue.
  3. Your settings (logos, colors, navigation, custom theme options) are preserved. Edits made directly to theme files, including locale files, are replaced — back them up first.

Can’t find your Purchase ID? Contact us directly and we’ll help you get the latest version.

Feedback

Have a suggestion or want to report a bug? Contact us — we read every message.

Changelog

1.0.0 — 2026-09-17

  • Initial release
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