Documentation
Page Configuration

Page Configuration

In Nextra, the site and page structure can be configured via the co-located _meta.json files. In the docs theme, there are some extra options available to customize it further.

Those configurations affect the overall layout of the theme, especially the navigation bar and the sidebar.

💡

Read more about Nextra’s _meta.json files here.

Pages

The title and order of a page shown in the sidebar should be configured in the _meta.json file as key-value pairs. For example, if you have the following file structure:

    • _meta.json
    • about.mdx
    • contact.mdx
    • index.mdx
  • You can define how the pages are shown in the sidebar via the _meta.json file:

    _meta.json
    {
      "index": "My Homepage",
      "contact": "Contact Us",
      "about": "About Us"
    }
    💡

    If any routes are not listed in the _meta.json file, they will be appended to the end of the sidebar and sorted alphabetically, and the title will be formatted with Title.

    Folders

    Folders can be configured in the same way as pages. For example:

      • _meta.json
      • apple.mdx
      • banana.mdx
    • _meta.json
    • about.mdx
    • contact.mdx
    • index.mdx
  • The top-level _meta.json file contains the meta information for the top-level pages and folders:

    pages/_meta.json
    {
      "index": "My Homepage",
      "contact": "Contact Us",
      "fruits": "Delicious Fruits",
      "about": "About Us"
    }

    And the nested _meta.json file contains the meta information for pages in the same folder:

    pages/fruits/_meta.json
    {
      "apple": "Apple",
      "banana": "Banana"
    }

    This way, information for pages are grouped together in directories. You can move directories around without having to change the _meta.json file.

    Folders with Index Page

    What if I want to have a folder with an index page? We can add a MDX page with the same name and in the same directory as the folder. Let’s say we want to add /fruits route in the example above, we can create a fruits.mdx file in pages:

      • _meta.json
      • apple.mdx
      • banana.mdx
    • _meta.json
    • about.mdx
    • contact.mdx
    • fruits.mdx
    • index.mdx
  • Then Nextra knows that the fruits key in _meta.json defines a folder with an index page. If you click that folder in the sidebar, it will open the folder and show you the fruits.mdx page at the same time.

    External Links

    You can add external links to the sidebar by adding an item with href in _meta.json:

    pages/_meta.json
    {
      "index": "My Homepage",
      "contact": "Contact Us",
      "fruits": "Delicious Fruits",
      "about": "About Us",
      "github_link": {
        "title": "Nextra",
        "href": "https://github.com/shuding/nextra"
      }
    }

    To always open the link in a new tab, enable the "newWindow": true option:

    pages/_meta.json
    {
      "index": "My Homepage",
      "contact": "Contact Us",
      "fruits": "Delicious Fruits",
      "about": "About Us",
      "github_link": {
        "title": "Nextra",
        "href": "https://github.com/shuding/nextra",
        "newWindow": true
      }
    }
    💡

    You can use this option to link to relative internal links too.

    Hidden Routes

    By default, all MDX routes in the filesystem will be shown on the sidebar. But you can hide a specific pages or folders by using the "display": "hidden" configuration:

    pages/_meta.json
    {
      "index": "My Homepage",
      "contact": {
        "display": "hidden"
      },
      "about": "About Us"
    }

    The page will still be accessible via the /contact URL, but it will not be shown in the sidebar.

    Navbar Items

    Sub Docs

    By defining a top-level page or folder as "type": "page", it will be shown as a special page on the navigation bar, instead of the sidebar. With this feature, you can have multiple “sub docs”, and special pages or links such as “Contact Us” that are always visible.

    For example, you can have 2 docs folders frameworks and fruits in your project:

      • react.mdx
      • svelte.mdx
      • vue.mdx
      • apple.mdx
      • banana.mdx
    • _meta.json
    • about.mdx
    • index.mdx
  • In your top-level _meta.json file, you can set everything as a page, instead of a normal sidebar item:

    pages/_meta.json
    {
      "index": {
        "title": "Home",
        "type": "page"
      },
      "frameworks": {
        "title": "Frameworks",
        "type": "page"
      },
      "fruits": {
        "title": "Fruits",
        "type": "page"
      },
      "about": {
        "title": "About",
        "type": "page"
      }
    }

    And it will look like this:

    You can also hide links like Home from the navbar with the "display": "hidden" option.

    Menus

    You can also add menus to the navbar using "type": "menu" and the "items" option:

    Navbar menu
    pages/_meta.json
    {
      "company": {
        "title": "Company",
        "type": "menu",
        "items": {
          "about": {
            "title": "About",
            "href": "/about"
          },
          "contact": {
            "title": "Contact Us",
            "href": "mailto:hi@example.com"
          }
        }
      }
    }

    Links

    Same as the External Links option, you can have external links in the navbar too:

    pages/_meta.json
    {
      "index": {
        "title": "Home",
        "type": "page"
      },
      "about": {
        "title": "About",
        "type": "page"
      },
      "contact": {
        "title": "Contact Us",
        "type": "page",
        "href": "https://example.com/contact",
        "newWindow": true
      }
    }

    Fallbacks

    In the Sub Docs example above, we have to define the "type": "page" option for every page. To make it easier, you can use the "*" key to define the fallback configuration for all items in this folder:

    pages/_meta.json
    {
      "*": {
        "type": "page"
      },
      "index": "Home",
      "frameworks": "Frameworks",
      "fruits": "Fruits",
      "about": "About"
    }

    They are equivalent where all items have "type": "page" set.

    Separators

    You can use a “placeholder” item with "type": "separator" to create a separator line between items in the sidebar:

    _meta.json
    {
      "index": "My Homepage",
      "---": {
        "type": "separator"
      },
      "contact": "Contact Us"
    }
    💡

    To customize the look of titles and separator lines in the sidebar use JSX elements.

    Advanced

    Theme Components

    You can configure the theme for each page using the "theme" option. For example, you can disable or enable specific components for specific pages:

    pages/_meta.json
    {
      "index": {
        "title": "Home",
        "theme": {
          "breadcrumb": false,
          "footer": true,
          "sidebar": false,
          "toc": true,
          "pagination": false
        }
      }
    }

    This option will be inherited by all child pages if set to a folder.

    Layouts

    By default, each page has "layout": "default" in their theme config, which is the default behavior.

    Raw Layout

    By default, Nextra renders the MDX content (such as h1, h2, h3 etc.) with themed components, inside a content container. You can use the "raw" layout to let Nextra to not inject any styles to the content:

    pages/_meta.json
    {
      "index": {
        "title": "Home",
        "theme": {
          "layout": "raw"
        }
      }
    }

    Full Layout

    You might want to render some page with the full container width and height, but keep all the other styles. You can use the "full" layout to do that:

    pages/_meta.json
    {
      "index": {
        "title": "Home",
        "theme": {
          "layout": "full"
        }
      }
    }

    Typesetting

    The "typesetting" option controls typesetting details like font features, heading styles and components like li and code. There are "default" and "article" typesettings available in the docs theme.

    The default one is suitable for most cases like documentation, but you can use the "article" typesetting to make it look like an elegant article page:

    pages/_meta.json
    {
      "about": {
        "title": "About Us",
        "theme": {
          "typesetting": "article"
        }
      }
    }