Using org-mode with Jekyll
Since my journey into Google Docs’s Hell I have been getting more reacquainted with org-mode for other purposes as well. Traditionally, I have been writing this blog using Markdown and publishing it with Jekyll. I love Markdown, and while it is fine for most cases, but what better way to gain more experience with org-mode than to blog with it! The best tutorial that I have found so far is this one from the org mode web site: Using org to Blog with Jekyll. One “gotcha” that I have ran into so far, is everything breaking if I include a table of contents (which happens by default when you export to HTML). The simplest solution for this is to add the following to the top of your org flavored file.
#+OPTIONS: toc:nil
This allows the front-matter to be exported properly. I am also choosing not to include section numbering for my posts. So the complete front-matter for this post looks like this:
#+OPTIONS: toc:nil num:nil
#+BEGIN_HTML
---
layout: post
title: "Using org-mode with Jekyll"
permalink: /:title/
tags: hacking
---
#+END_HTML
Configuration
;; File ~/.emacs.d/customizations/setup-org.el
;; ...
;;;;
;; Projects
;;;;
;; levlaz.org Blog
(setq org-publish-project-alist
'(("levlaz"
;; Path to org files.
:base-directory "~/git/levlaz.org/_org"
:base-extension "org"
;; Path to Jekyll Posts
:publishing-directory "~/git/levlaz.org/_posts/2016/"
:recursive t
:publishing-function org-html-publish-to-html
:headline-levels 4
:html-extension "html"
:body-only t
)))
Workflow
- Add a new file to
git/levlaz.org/_org/$DATE-$TITLE.org - Add the front matter shown above
- Blog my heart out
- Check my spelling with
ispell - Publish the org file with
C-c C-e P p, this moves the file fromgit/levlaz.org/_org/to/git/levlaz.org/_posts/2016/$DATE-$TITLE.html - Build and Deploy my site with my Rakefile:
rake deploy.
Conclusion
Thank you for reading! Share your thoughts with me on bluesky, mastodon, or via email.
Check out some more stuff to read down below.
Most popular posts this month
- SQLite DB Migrations with PRAGMA user_version
- My Custom Miniflux CSS Theme
- Making cgit Pretty
- Using cgit
- Convert Markdown to PDF in Sublime Text
Recent Favorite Blog Posts
This is a collection of the last 8 posts that I bookmarked.
- Rewrote my blog with Zine from Drew DeVault's blog
- A eulogy for Vim from Drew DeVault's blog
- Pluralistic: AI "journalists" prove that media bosses don't give a shit (11 Mar 2026) from Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
- Offline 23 hours a day from Derek Sivers blog
- Pluralistic: California can stop Larry Ellison from buying Warners (28 Feb 2026) from Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
- On Alliances from Smashing Frames
- Acting ethically in an imperfect world from Smashing Frames
- Diffusion of Responsibility from Smashing Frames
Articles from blogs I follow around the net
Pluralistic: Demand destruction vs fuel-superceding infrastructure (04 May 2026)
Today's links Demand destruction vs fuel-superceding infrastructure: Will Trump hormuz us into the full Gretacene? Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: Beck, Scientologist; Citizen journalism; Podcast-killing treaty; US x Kiwi copyri...
via Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow May 4, 20261993 communal internet shaped me: https://sive.rs/netizen
1993 communal internet shaped me: https://sive.rs/netizen
via Derek Sivers May 4, 2026The 1990s called and they want their dialog box back
This is perhaps my favourite feature in Lightroom. You press ⇧T, you draw a few lines, and presto – your photo is now even: This is doubly magical to me. The first part is that this is even possible – that you can straighten the photo in both dimensions af...
via Unsung May 3, 2026Generated by openring