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User Guide

This page provides everything you need to know about the usage of RenderCV.

Installation

  1. Install Python (3.10 or newer).

  2. Run the command below to install RenderCV.

pip install "rendercv[full]"

Getting started

To get started, navigate to the directory where you want to create your CV and run the command below to create the input files.

rendercv new "Your Full Name"
This command will create the following files:

  • A YAML input file called Your_Name_CV.yaml.

    This file contains the content and design options of your CV. A detailed explanation of the structure of the YAML input file is provided here.

  • A directory called classic.

    This directory contains the Typst templates of RenderCV's default built-in theme, classic. You can update its contents to tweak the appearance of the output PDF file.

  • A directory called markdown.

    This directory contains the templates of RenderCV's default Markdown template. You can update its contents to tweak the Markdown and HTML output of the CV.

A note about classic and markdown directories

It's optional to have the classic and markdown directories. If you don't have them, RenderCV will use the built-in theme and Markdown templates.

Info

Refer to the here for the complete list of CLI options available for the new command.

Then, open the Your_Name_CV.yaml file in your favorite text editor and fill it with your information. See the structure of the YAML input file for more information about the YAML input file.

Finally, render the YAML input file to generate your CV.

rendercv render "Your_Name_CV.yaml"

This command will generate a directory called rendercv_output, which contains the following files:

  • The CV in PDF format, Your_Name_CV.pdf.
  • Typst source code of the PDF file, Your_Name_CV.typ.
  • Images of each page of the PDF file in PNG format, Your_Name_CV_1.png, Your_Name_CV_page_2.png, etc.
  • The CV in Markdown format, Your_Name_CV.md.
  • The CV in HTML format, Your_Name_CV.html. You can open this file in a web browser and copy-paste the content to Grammarly for proofreading.

Info

Refer to the here for the complete list of CLI options available for the render command.

Overriding built-in themes

If the theme and Markdown templates are found in the directory, they will override the default built-in theme and Markdown templates. You don't need to provide all the files; you can just provide the ones you want to override.

For example, ExperienceEntry of the classic theme can be modified as shown below.

├── classic
│   └── ExperienceEntry.j2.typ # (1)!
└── Your_Full_Name_CV.yaml
  1. This file will override the built-in ExperienceEntry.j2.typ template of the classic theme.