Create your first help site in 10 minutes

By the end of this tutorial, you will have a live documentation site with 3 topics, a navigation sidebar, and a search bar, published and shareable.

Before you begin #

• Sign up for a Topicary account at topicary.com

• No prior CCMS (component content management system) experience is needed. This tutorial starts from scratch

Sign up and create a project #

1. Visit topicary.com and click Get started.

2. Create an account with your email and password.

3. On first login, a Welcome to Topicary dialog offers a sample project. Click Skip and start from scratch, since we will build everything ourselves.

4. On the Projects page, click Create project and name it "Product Docs."

You are now in the project. The sidebar lists Dashboard, Demand, Topics, Maps, then a Publishing section (Sites), Analytics, and Settings. Some sidebar items appear only on higher plans, so your list may be shorter than a teammate's.

Write your first topic #

1. Click Topics in the sidebar.

2. Click Create topic.

3. Replace the "Untitled" title with "Getting Started."

4. In the editor, type a short paragraph: "Welcome to our product. This guide walks you through setup and first steps."

5. Press Enter and type / to open the Editor slash commands. Select Heading 2 and type "Installation."

6. Add a few bullet points below the heading describing installation steps.

Add 2 more topics #

1. Go back to Topics and click Create topic again.

2. Name this one "Configuration" and add a short paragraph about configuration options. Try inserting a Work with tables with the / menu: select Table and fill in a few rows with setting names and descriptions.

3. Create a third topic called "API Reference." Add a heading, a paragraph, and a code block (type / and select Code Block). Pick a language and paste a sample request.

You now have 3 Create and manage topics.

Organize topics into a map #

1. Click Maps in the sidebar.

2. Click New map and name it "User Guide."

3. The map editor opens with a Topic Pool panel on the left. Click "Getting Started" in the pool to add it to the map. Repeat for "Configuration" and "API Reference."

4. Drag a topic in the tree to reorder it: drop "Configuration" between the other 2 if needed.

5. Drag "API Reference" slightly to the right to nest it under "Configuration," then drag it back to the left to return it to the top level. (You can also right-click a topic and choose Indent or Outdent.)

Publish to the web #

1. In the map editor, open the Publishing panel from the right icon rail and click Set up publishing. (You can also reach this from Publishing in the sidebar.)

2. At the bottom of the publishing page, type a target name ("Public Docs"), leave the format set to Web, and click Add target.

3. Click Publish on the new target.

The The publishing pipeline resolves your content and generates a live site. Click the site URL to open it.

Explore your published site #

Your site has:

• A homepage with a search bar and page cards

• A sidebar matching your map's topic order

• A table of contents on each page tracking headings as you scroll

• Previous/next links between pages

• Full-text search: press Cmd+K to try it

• A dark mode toggle in the header

What you learned #

You created a project, wrote 3 topics with different content types, organized them in a map, and published a live documentation site. The entire authoring-to-publishing workflow works through these 3 steps: write topics, organize in a map, publish a target.

Next, try the Reuse content with components tutorial to learn how to write once and reference everywhere.

See also #

• The topic-map-publication model: understand the 3-layer architecture behind what you just built

• Use slash commands: full reference for the `/` menu used throughout this tutorial

• Customize your site's branding: personalize the site you just published with your logo and colors

• Import from Markdown: bring existing docs into Topicary instead of writing from scratch