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design Field

The design field controls every visual aspect of your CV: colors, fonts, spacing, and layout.

Built-in Themes

RenderCV includes 5 built-in themes. To use one, simply specify the theme:

design:
  theme: classic

Available themes: classic (default), engineeringclassic, engineeringresumes, moderncv, sb2nov.

All themes are identical except for their default values. If you specify a setting explicitly, it overrides the theme's default. This means:

  • If you specify all design options in your YAML, changing the theme has no effect
  • If you leave settings unspecified, changing the theme completely changes the design (because it uses different defaults)
  • You can start with any theme and customize only what you want to change

Customizing Design

You can override any field to fine-tune the theme:

design:
  theme: classic
  colors:
    name: rgb(255, 0, 0)  # Override just the name color

Or specify all options for complete control:

design:
  theme: classic

  page:
    size: us-letter # (1)!
    top_margin: 0.7in
    bottom_margin: 0.7in
    left_margin: 0.7in
    right_margin: 0.7in
    show_footer: true
    show_top_note: true

  colors:
    body: rgb(0, 0, 0)
    name: rgb(0, 79, 144)
    headline: rgb(0, 79, 144)
    connections: rgb(0, 79, 144)
    section_titles: rgb(0, 79, 144)
    links: rgb(0, 79, 144)
    footer: rgb(128, 128, 128)
    top_note: rgb(128, 128, 128)

  typography:
    line_spacing: 0.6em
    alignment: justified # (2)!
    date_and_location_column_alignment: right
    font_family: # (11)!
      body: Source Sans 3 # (9)!
      name: Source Sans 3
      headline: Source Sans 3
      connections: Source Sans 3
      section_titles: Source Sans 3
    font_size:
      body: 10pt
      name: 30pt
      headline: 10pt
      connections: 10pt
      section_titles: 1.4em
    small_caps:
      name: false
      headline: false
      connections: false
      section_titles: false
    bold:
      name: true
      headline: false
      connections: false
      section_titles: true

  links:
    underline: false
    show_external_link_icon: false

  header:
    alignment: center # (3)!
    photo_width: 3.5cm
    photo_position: left # (8)!
    photo_space_left: 0.4cm
    photo_space_right: 0.4cm
    space_below_name: 0.7cm
    space_below_headline: 0.7cm
    space_below_connections: 0.7cm
    connections:
      phone_number_format: national # (7)!
      hyperlink: true
      show_icons: true
      display_urls_instead_of_usernames: false
      separator: ''
      space_between_connections: 0.5cm

  section_titles:
    type: with_partial_line # (4)!
    line_thickness: 0.5pt
    space_above: 0.5cm
    space_below: 0.3cm

  sections:
    allow_page_break: true
    space_between_regular_entries: 1.2em
    space_between_text_based_entries: 0.3em
    show_time_spans_in: # (5)!
      - experience

  entries:
    date_and_location_width: 4.15cm
    side_space: 0.2cm
    space_between_columns: 0.1cm
    allow_page_break: false
    short_second_row: true
    summary:
      space_above: 0cm
      space_left: 0cm
    highlights:
      bullet: • # (6)!
      nested_bullet: •
      space_left: 0.15cm
      space_above: 0cm
      space_between_items: 0cm
      space_between_bullet_and_text: 0.5em

  templates: # (10)!
    footer: '*NAME -- PAGE_NUMBER/TOTAL_PAGES*'
    top_note: '*LAST_UPDATED CURRENT_DATE*'
    single_date: MONTH_ABBREVIATION YEAR
    date_range: START_DATE – END_DATE
    time_span: HOW_MANY_YEARS YEARS HOW_MANY_MONTHS MONTHS
    one_line_entry:
      main_column: '**LABEL:** DETAILS'
    education_entry:
      main_column: |-
        **INSTITUTION**, AREA
        SUMMARY
        HIGHLIGHTS
      degree_column: '**DEGREE**'
      date_and_location_column: |-
        LOCATION
        DATE
    normal_entry:
      main_column: |-
        **NAME**
        SUMMARY
        HIGHLIGHTS
      date_and_location_column: |-
        LOCATION
        DATE
    experience_entry:
      main_column: |-
        **COMPANY**, POSITION
        SUMMARY
        HIGHLIGHTS
      date_and_location_column: |-
        LOCATION
        DATE
    publication_entry:
      main_column: |-
        **TITLE**
        AUTHORS
        URL (JOURNAL)
      date_and_location_column: DATE
  1. Page size options: a4, a5, us-letter, us-executive
  2. Body text alignment: left, justified, justified-with-no-hyphenation justified spreads text across the full width, justified-with-no-hyphenation does the same without breaking words
  3. Header alignment: left, center, right
  4. Section title styles: with_partial_line, with_full_line, without_line, moderncv with_partial_line adds a line next to the title, with_full_line spans the page, without_line has no line, moderncv uses ModernCV style
  5. Show time spans: Specify which sections should display duration calculations (e.g., "2 years 3 months")
  6. Bullet characters: ●, •, ◦, -, ◆, ★, ■, —, ○
  7. Phone number formats: national, international, E164 national formats for domestic use, international includes country code, E164 is the standard international format
  8. Photo position: left or right of the header text
  9. Available fonts: Aptos, Arial, Arial Rounded MT, Arial Unicode MS, Comic Sans MS, Courier New, DejaVu Sans Mono, Didot, EB Garamond, Fontin, Garamond, Gentium Book Plus, Georgia, Georgia, Gill Sans, Helvetica, Impact, Inter, Lato, Libertinus Serif, Lucida Sans Unicode, Mukta, New Computer Modern, Noto Sans, Open Sans, Open Sauce Sans, Poppins, Raleway, Roboto, Source Sans 3, Tahoma, Tahoma, Times New Roman, Times New Roman, Trebuchet MS, Ubuntu, Verdana, Verdana, XCharter. Also, any system font can be used. Custom fonts can be used as well. See Custom Fonts for more information.
  10. Templates: Advanced customization - define how each entry type is rendered using placeholders like NAME, COMPANY, DATE, etc.
  11. Font family shorthand: You can specify font_family: "Latin Modern Roman" directly instead of using nested options to apply the same font everywhere