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Use GitBook to create technical product documentation |
Documentation is a vital part of any product, and teams that nail theirs from the start get ahead of the competition earlier on. Engaging product documentation adds so much value; it increases your user’s confidence in the product, improves the user experience, and increases user satisfaction.
Often, writers of product documentation face challenges related to ease of contribution, updating and maintaining information, and the look and feel of the docs. This can result in having to compromise on at least one of those aspects — but not with GitBook!
GitBook allows you to make writing beautiful documentation part of your everyday workflow.
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Import or create your content
Get started in a matter of minutes with our intuitive editor. -
Create easy to read content with blocks designed for technical authors and readers.
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Review your content in change requests while maintaining full control of each version.
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Match your existing Git workflow
Bridge the gap between collaborators who write directly in the GitBook editor, and those who prefer to write in Markdown in a GitHub or GitLab repository. -
Customize your documentation
Create beautiful docs that match your brand by uploading your logo, setting a primary color, choosing a font, and more. -
Integrate existing tools within your docs
Include live code samples directly in your doc with RunKit, create graphs and diagrams with Markdown. -
Choose from a number of visibility settings, plus you can publish on your own custom domain.
GitBook allows you to easily start creating and editing your content. In cases where you already have content written elsewhere, you can import it. We support importing from files or websites that are in markdown, HTML or Microsoft word formats, as well as importing from a number of other services.
{% content-ref url="../content-creation/import.md" %} import.md {% endcontent-ref %}
Alternatively, if you are just kicking off your documentation journey you can easily start writing by designing your content structure and inviting other collaborators to work with you.
In addition to standard text, image and list blocks, GitBook allows you to directly include more technical content. Find out more about:
Once your initial content exists, it’s important to design a contribution workflow that will ensure your documentation remains up-to-date. You can manage the access of each contributor or team of contributors through permissions and inheritance, allowing for a review process before merging your content into the main branch.
Each change request is tracked and logged in the activity tab, which gives you an overview of the work that has been happening in the space. If you ever need to view or roll back to an older version of the content, you can do that from the change history section.
A huge benefit of GitBook is the ability to bridge the gap between contributors who prefer to collaborate in Markdown or write documentation directly in their Git repository and those who may not know Markdown or simply prefer the expanded editing capabilities.
Thanks to our bi-directional sync, documentation is continuously updated regardless of whether it is edited in your Git repository or in GitBook, removing any potential friction or silos in your team.
{% content-ref url="../integrations/git-sync/" %} git-sync {% endcontent-ref %}
GitBook makes it easy to align your documentation with your branding. Change the logo, font, primary colour, header and footer links, light or dark mode, and more in our interactive customizer.
Additionally, each page can make use of one of three layouts: docs page, editorial post, and landing page. Combining landing pages with docs pages can help with structuring your technical product documentation in a way that helps users find what they’re looking for, faster.
We’ve made it easier for your documentation to integrate closely with other tools you use for support, tracking or collaboration allowing you to build one smooth workflow.
Our RunKit integration allows your users to run sample code directly from your documentation, embedding interactive JavaScript playgrounds connected to a complete Node environment right in your browser.
Our Mermaid integration allows you to create diagrams and visualizations using text and code. With the integration enabled you can insert the Mermaid block into any page. You can edit the code content and preview how it looks using the live editor.
{% hint style="info" %} When using Git Sync, all code blocks with the mermaid syntax will be replaced by diagram. All diagrams inserted from the editor will be formatted as such code blocks in Markdown. {% endhint %}
We offer a number of other integrations, too, and have plans to make it easier to extend GitBook with additional integrations in the future. 🤩
When your documentation is ready, publishing it is a breeze! Choose from a number of options, deciding based on who should have access to the published content.
For complete control, we offer visitor authentication. This feature lets your server-side code handle who has access to the content.
As a finishing touch, set a custom domain so that your visitors can use a subdomain of your choice to access the published documentation. If your website is available at example.com, you might choose to set a custom domain of docs.example.com for your documentation.
Creating good product documentation can be hard — but GitBook makes it easier! Sign up or log in to start trying out these features right away.