Quire Commands

Quire commands are typically run from Terminal on a Mac and Git Bash (or its equivalent) on a PC. They control creating, previewing, and outputting Quire projects. The following commands are available.

Start and Preview Projects

quire new project-name

Create a new Quire project named project-name in the current directory. The name can be anything, but shouldn’t contain spaces or special characters.

quire preview

Run a local server to preview the project in a browser. Defaults to previewing at http://localhost:1313/, but will use other port numbers (such as http://localhost:6532/) if 1313 is busy. The specific address will be listed in your command-line terminal after running the command. If you’re having any issue with the preview, try running quire preview --verbose instead. This outputs error, warning, and other processing information that can sometimes be useful in troubleshooting.

quire install

Install this project’s theme dependencies when you update or change themes.

quire stop

Stop the preview from running. This can also be done by typing Control-C.

Output Files

quire site

Build the final web files for your publication into its site directory. These include all the pages, images, and styles necessary for your project, and can be hosted on any web server.

quire pdf

Generate a PDF version of your publication into its static/downloads/ directory as output.pdf.

quire epub

Generate an EPUB version of your publication into its static/downloads/ directory as output.epub.

quire mobi

Generate an MOBI (Kindle) version of your publication into its static/downloads/ directory as output.mobi.

For the PDF, EPUB, and MOBI commands you can specify a new filename with the --file option.

quire pdf --file=photography

Outputs as: static/downloads/photography.pdf

Or you can specify a name and an alternative file path. If the directories don’t already exist in your project, Quire will create them and output the file there. We recommend always outputting somewhere into the static directory as this will automatically be included in your project when you run quire site to output the final web files.

quire epub --file=static/ebooks/photography

Outputs as: static/ebooks/photography.epub.

Also for the PDF, EPUB, and MOBI commands, developers may use the --env option to specify and environmental variable.

Customize File Templates

quire template epub

Download the built-in template for customization of the cover and title pages of the EPUB and MOBI files Quire outputs. epub/template.xhtml All other template customization (for the website and pdf/print versions) is done in the theme directory.

Get Help

quire -V quire --version

Output the version number.

quire -h quire --help

Output usage information.

quire preview --verbose

Show verbose output in the command-line. Includes warnings, errors, and process information.

quire debug

Development use only. Log info about current project.