Custom output formats

This page describes how to properly configure your site with the media types and output formats, as well as where to create your templates for your custom outputs.

Media types

A media type (formerly known as a MIME type) is a two-part identifier for file formats and format contents transmitted on the internet.

This is the full set of built-in media types in Hugo:

Note:

• It is possible to add custom media types or change the defaults; e.g., if you want to change the suffix for text/html to asp.
• Suffixes are the values that will be used for URLs and file names for that media type in Hugo.
• The Type is the identifier that must be used when defining new/custom Output Formats (see below).
• The full set of media types will be registered in Hugo’s built-in development server to make sure they are recognized by the browser.

To add or modify a media type, define it in a mediaTypes section in your site configuration, either for all sites or for a given language.

mediaTypes:
  text/enriched:
    suffixes:
    - enr
  text/html:
    suffixes:
    - asp

[mediaTypes]
  [mediaTypes.'text/enriched']
    suffixes = ['enr']
  [mediaTypes.'text/html']
    suffixes = ['asp']

{
   "mediaTypes": {
      "text/enriched": {
         "suffixes": [
            "enr"
         ]
      },
      "text/html": {
         "suffixes": [
            "asp"
         ]
      }
   }
}

The above example adds one new media type, text/enriched, and changes the suffix for the built-in text/html media type.

Note: these media types are configured for your output formats. If you want to redefine one of Hugo’s default output formats (e.g. HTML), you also need to redefine the media type. So, if you want to change the suffix of the HTML output format from html (default) to htm:

mediaTypes:
  text/html:
    suffixes:
    - htm
outputFormats:
  html:
    mediaType: text/html

[mediaTypes]
  [mediaTypes.'text/html']
    suffixes = ['htm']
[outputFormats]
  [outputFormats.html]
    mediaType = 'text/html'

{
   "mediaTypes": {
      "text/html": {
         "suffixes": [
            "htm"
         ]
      }
   },
   "outputFormats": {
      "html": {
         "mediaType": "text/html"
      }
   }
}

Note that for the above to work, you also need to add an outputs definition in your site configuration.

Output format definitions

Given a media type and some additional configuration, you get an Output Format.

This is the full set of Hugo’s built-in output formats:

• A page can be output in as many output formats as you want, and you can have an infinite amount of output formats defined as long as they resolve to a unique path on the file system. In the above table, the best example of this is amp vs. html. amp has the value amp for path so it doesn’t overwrite the html version; e.g. we can now have both /index.html and /amp/index.html.
• The mediaType must match a defined media type.
• You can define new output formats or redefine built-in output formats; e.g., if you want to put amp pages in a different path.

To add or modify an output format, define it in an outputFormats section in your site’s configuration file, either for all sites or for a given language.

outputFormats:
  MyEnrichedFormat:
    baseName: myindex
    isPlainText: true
    mediaType: text/enriched
    protocol: bep://

[outputFormats]
  [outputFormats.MyEnrichedFormat]
    baseName = 'myindex'
    isPlainText = true
    mediaType = 'text/enriched'
    protocol = 'bep://'

{
   "outputFormats": {
      "MyEnrichedFormat": {
         "baseName": "myindex",
         "isPlainText": true,
         "mediaType": "text/enriched",
         "protocol": "bep://"
      }
   }
}

The above example is fictional, but if used for the homepage on a site with baseURL https://example.org, it will produce a plain text homepage with the URL bep://example.org/myindex.enr.

Configure output formats

The following is the full list of configuration options for output formats and their default values:

name

the output format identifier. This is used to define what output format(s) you want for your pages.

mediaType

this must match the Type of a defined media type.

path

sub path to save the output files.

baseName

the base file name for the list file names (homepage, etc.). Default: index.

rel

can be used to create rel values in link tags. Default: alternate.

protocol

will replace the “http://” or “https://” in your baseURL for this output format.

isPlainText

use Go’s plain text templates parser for the templates. Default: false.

isHTML

used in situations only relevant for HTML-type formats; e.g., page aliases. Default: false.

noUgly

used to turn off ugly URLs If uglyURLs is set to true in your site. Default: false.

notAlternative

enable if it doesn’t make sense to include this format in an AlternativeOutputFormats format listing on Page (e.g., with CSS). Note that we use the term alternative and not alternate here, as it does not necessarily replace the other format. Default: false.

permalinkable

make .Permalink and .RelPermalink return the rendering Output Format rather than main (see below). This is enabled by default for HTML and AMP. Default: false.

weight

Setting this to a non-zero value will be used as the first sort criteria.

Output formats for pages

A Page in Hugo can be rendered to multiple output formats on the file system.

Default output formats

Every Page has a Kind attribute, and the default Output Formats are set based on that.

outputs:
  home:
  - html
  - rss
  page:
  - html
  rss:
  - rss
  section:
  - html
  - rss
  taxonomy:
  - html
  - rss
  term:
  - html
  - rss

[outputs]
  home = ['html', 'rss']
  page = ['html']
  rss = ['rss']
  section = ['html', 'rss']
  taxonomy = ['html', 'rss']
  term = ['html', 'rss']

{
   "outputs": {
      "home": [
         "html",
         "rss"
      ],
      "page": [
         "html"
      ],
      "rss": [
         "rss"
      ],
      "section": [
         "html",
         "rss"
      ],
      "taxonomy": [
         "html",
         "rss"
      ],
      "term": [
         "html",
         "rss"
      ]
   }
}

Customizing output formats

This can be changed by defining an outputs list of output formats in either the Page front matter or in the site configuration (either for all sites or per language).

Example from site configuration file:

outputs:
  home:
  - html
  - amp
  - rss
  page:
  - html

[outputs]
  home = ['html', 'amp', 'rss']
  page = ['html']

{
   "outputs": {
      "home": [
         "html",
         "amp",
         "rss"
      ],
      "page": [
         "html"
      ]
   }
}

Note that in the above examples, the output formats for section, taxonomy and term will stay at their default value ['html','rss'].

• The outputs definition is per page Kind.
• The names (e.g. html, amp) must match the name of a defined output format, and can be overridden per page in front matter.

The following is an example of front matter in a content file that defines output formats for the rendered Page:

---
outputs:
- html
- amp
- json
title: Example
---

+++
outputs = ['html', 'amp', 'json']
title = 'Example'
+++

{
   "outputs": [
      "html",
      "amp",
      "json"
   ],
   "title": "Example"
}

List output formats

Each Page has both an .OutputFormats (all formats, including the current) and an .AlternativeOutputFormats variable, the latter of which is useful for creating a link rel list in your site’s <head>:

{{ range .AlternativeOutputFormats -}}
  <link rel="{{ .Rel }}" type="{{ .MediaType.Type }}" href="{{ .Permalink | safeURL }}">
{{ end }}

Link to output formats

.Permalink and .RelPermalink on Page will return the first output format defined for that page (usually HTML if nothing else is defined). This is regardless of the template file they are being called from.

from single.json.json:

{{ .RelPermalink }} → /that-page/
{{ with .OutputFormats.Get "json" }}
  {{ .RelPermalink }} → /that-page/index.json
{{ end }}

In order for them to return the output format of the current template file instead, the given output format should have its permalinkable setting set to true.

Same template file as above with json output format’s permalinkable set to true:

{{ .RelPermalink }} → /that-page/index.json
{{ with  .OutputFormats.Get "html" }}
  {{ .RelPermalink }} → /that-page/
{{ end }}

From content files, you can use the ref or relref shortcodes:

[Neat]({{< ref "blog/neat.md" "amp" >}})
[Who]({{< relref "about.md#who" "amp" >}})

Templates for your output formats

Each output format requires a corresponding template conforming to the template lookup order. Hugo considers both output format and suffix when selecting a template.

For example, to generate a JSON file for the home page, the template with highest specificity is layouts/index.json.json.

Hugo will now also detect the media type and output format of partials, if possible, and use that information to decide if the partial should be parsed as a plain text template or not.

Hugo will look for the name given, so you can name it whatever you want. But if you want it treated as plain text, you should use the file suffix and, if needed, the name of the Output Format. The pattern is as follows:

[partial name].[OutputFormat].[suffix]

The partial below is a plain text template . The output format is csv, and since this is the only output format with the suffix csv, we don’t need to include the output format name):

{{ partial "mytextpartial.csv" . }}