ink-free — Hugo Portfolio Template

SHA-256: eb45674b429a0b7b77eab68ab9ff33e6a39564b114ad119582cd3c4df07080b2

2026-10-02T10:11:55.097Z

# Ink-Free

[!["Example"](https://img.shields.io/static/v1?label=Example&message=chollinger.com&color=green&logo=hugo)](https://chollinger.com/blog)
[![Minimum Hugo Version](https://img.shields.io/static/v1?label=HUGO-version&message=>=0.87.0&color=blue&logo=hugo)](https://github.com/gohugoio/hugo/releases/tag/v0.87.0)
[![ink-free](https://img.shields.io/static/v1?label=ink-free&message=Theme&color=blue&logo=hugo)](ttps://themes.gohugo.io/themes/ink-free/)
[![License: MIT](https://img.shields.io/badge/License-MIT-yellow.svg)](https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT)

Crisp, minimal personal website and blog theme Hugo, designed for a collaborative, open-source, privacy conscious blog.

Forked from [knadh](https://github.com/knadh/hugo-ink) with custom adjustments. Originally forked from [Ezhil](https://github.com/vividvilla/ezhil).


## Ink-Free vs Hugo-Ink
This repository is a purely local (i.e., no CDNs[^1]), simplified version of `hugo-ink` with several **simplifications** for the sake of privacy:
- Removed all references to Google's font-CDN
- Removed Analytics code, replaced with self-hosted options[^2]

As well as some additional **features**:
- Added a Back button to all posts
- Added a Table of Contents (TOC), controlled by a variable, to all posts
  - The TOC can either be static at the top
  - Or floating on the side

- Added a word count, tags, and an approximate read time to the overview
- Added random footer messages
- Added "Edit this on GitHub" button
- Added `inlineimg` shortcode to render images (e.g. SVGs) in-line
- Added support for `![](image title="title")` syntax for image titles
- Random, somewhat humorous messages at the end of each post
- Added support for [mermaid](https://mermaid.js.org/) diagrams (*loads via CDN by default, can be set via `mermaidCDN`*)

And some **bugfixes**:
- Modified the CSS to
  - Order all tags inline, as opposed to as a list
  - Change the background color for Syntax Highlighting, otherwise we're looking at grey code on a grey background
  - Added some classes for a Back button

## Demo

### Overview

![Screenshot](images/screenshot.png "Ink-Free theme")

![image-20230620151830930](images/screenshot2.png)

![Dark Mode](images/dark_mode.png "Dark mode")

### Table Of Contents Options

#### Floating

![image-20230620114414684](images/floating_toc.png)

#### Static

![image-20230620151300448](images/static_toc.png)

#### Both

![image-20230620151006141](images/both_toc.png)

#### Truncated

![image-20230620151110164](images/truncated_toc.png)

#### Mobile

![image-20230620151645609](images/mobile_toc.png)

### Run the example
```
cd exampleSite
hugo serve  --themesDir ../..
```

## Features
* Syntax highlighting
* RSS feeds
* Custom CSS/JS
* Multilingual months support
* Custom TOC
* In-Line images w/ Titles
* Random footer messages
* "Edit this on GitHub" button
* Word count, tags, and an approximate read time in the overview
* [Umami](https://github.com/umami-software/umami) support

## Installation

cd into your hugo site's root directory and:

```sh
cd themes
git submodule add https://github.com/chollinger93/ink-free
```

For more information read the [official setup guide](https://gohugo.io/overview/installing/) of Hugo.


## Content type

You can specify content type with field `type` in your content. For example static pages can be set as type `page` which are excluded from recent posts and all posts page. You can use site params `mainSections` and `disableDisqusTypes` to control which page types are excluded from recent posts and Disqus comments respectively.

```md
---
title: "About"
date: 2019-04-19T21:37:58+05:30
type: "page"
---

This is some static page where you can write about yourself.
```

## Language Settings for the month

Due to the currently unavailable feature for multilingual dates in ``.Date`` from
Go. It is possible to create a ``month.yaml`` in the data folder of your
Hugo site root directoy. There is also an example file in
``exampleSite/data/``.

```sh
cat > month.yaml << EOF
1: "Jan"
2: "Feb"
3: "Mar"
4: "Apr"
5: "May"
6: "Jun"
7: "Jul"
8: "Aug"
9: "Sep"
10: "Oct"
11: "Nov"
12: "Dec"
EOF
```

## Credits

* [knadh](https://github.com/knadh/hugo-ink), who created hugo-ink
* [Ezhil theme](https://github.com/vividvilla/ezhil) from which Ink was forked


## License
Licensed under the MIT license.

[^1]: Note that the Feather CDN can still be enabled, but you can also host it statically.
[^2]: This theme currently supports [umami](https://github.com/umami-software/umami) for a privacy focused alternative.