# Creating a theme, Gem or Bootstrap?

**URL:** <https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/creating-a-theme-gem-or-bootstrap/2810>\
**Category:** Help\
**Created:** [April 7, 2019, 2:38pm UTC](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/creating-a-theme-gem-or-bootstrap/2810 "2019-04-07T14:38:00Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![AleFachini](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/talk.jekyllrb.com/alefachini/32/1631_2.png) [@AleFachini](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/u/AleFachini)\
**Post date:** [April 7, 2019, 2:38pm UTC](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/creating-a-theme-gem-or-bootstrap/2810/1 "2019-04-07T14:38:00Z")

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Hello, I really dont have much idea of what im doing i want to create a theme very simple:

Side Bar and simple colors nothin fancy, the problem is that i dont have idea where to start:

Should i Use Gems themes like minima?  
Should i Use bootstrap 4?  
Are those even exclusive one with another???

If so how do i start? im on Windows installed git, published a site on gh-pages but how do i make my theme¿?

Need directions: Tutorials guides docs. Thank you

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**Author:** ![rdyar](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/talk.jekyllrb.com/rdyar/32/710_2.png) [@rdyar](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/u/rdyar)\
**Post date:** [April 7, 2019, 9:25pm UTC](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/creating-a-theme-gem-or-bootstrap/2810/2 "2019-04-07T21:25:18Z")

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personally i would just do it with css in the project - not as a gem.

bootstrap is a css framework, I’m sure you could use it as a base to do whatever you want.

As for how to do it, if you are not experienced at css I’m not sure how to help. There are lots of great youtube videos on css. Last time I looked at BS it was a bit complicated to get into a project.

Somewhere there is a gallery of jekyll themes - some are probably gem based themes but there were some that had the css/layouts in the main project - you could find one of those and start poking around.

The docs have some info on working with gem based themes.

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**Author:** ![AleFachini](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/talk.jekyllrb.com/alefachini/32/1631_2.png) [@AleFachini](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/u/AleFachini)\
**Post date:** [April 8, 2019, 12:01pm UTC](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/creating-a-theme-gem-or-bootstrap/2810/3 "2019-04-08T12:01:52Z")

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Yes I’ve been readin a lot, what i cant find how to do is to Insert Bootstrap 4 on my theme Project, any guidance for that?  
Platform Win 10  
used: jekyll new-theme on git bash and created one index.md for testing my theme.  
Managed to creat a main.scss and partial scss inside \_scss but i dont get how to use bootstrap in here.

Thanks

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![rdyar](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/talk.jekyllrb.com/rdyar/32/710_2.png) [@rdyar](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/u/rdyar)\
**Post date:** [April 8, 2019, 4:09pm UTC](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/creating-a-theme-gem-or-bootstrap/2810/4 "2019-04-08T16:09:17Z")

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you might try this:

> **[Bootstrap 4 Github Pages](https://nicolas-van.github.io/bootstrap-4-github-pages/)**
>
> A Bootstrap 4 start up project for Jekyll and Github Pages

This page has some different ways to use it:

> **[Download](https://getbootstrap.com/docs/4.0/getting-started/download/)**
>
> Download Bootstrap to get the compiled CSS and JavaScript, source code, or include it with your favorite package managers like npm, RubyGems, and more.

I would probably use their precompiled option if I were to use it with a jekyll project.