What a reader can do on a published page

A published brand manual is one long page. You do not need an account to read it, search it, copy colors out of it, take the files or save it as a PDF. If you are handing a manual to an agency, a printer or a new hire, this is the page to send with it.

Opening the manual

Paste the address into a browser and the manual opens. It lives either on stylehub.cloud or on the brand's own domain. There is nothing to install. Two kinds of manual ask for something first:

A manual can have an end date. Past it the page says This manual is no longer available and shows none of the content; ask the brand for a current link. The rules are in Who may see a manual.

Moving around the page

The bar at the top stays with you as you scroll and marks the section you are reading. On a wide screen it lists the first six sections; if there are more, it ends with an All button that opens the full numbered list. Pick one and the page scrolls there.

• A thin progress bar fills as you scroll, and a round Top button appears in the bottom right corner once you are past the start.
• Only sections with content are listed. Empty ones, and any the brand keeps off the public page, do not appear.
• A brand can turn Show section navigation off. Then you read by scrolling, and search still works.
• Your place on the page is not saved. Next time you start at the top.

Searching the manual

Search in the top bar opens a search box, and so does / when you are not typing in a field. Results appear as you type, each with its section, the kind of block and the words around the match. Up and Down move through them, Enter or a click opens one and scrolls to that exact block, and Escape closes the box.

Search covers the text of every block, so color names, font names, tone of voice rules and captions are all findable. It matches parts of words, ignores case, and covers the manual you are on and no other.

Linking to one part of the manual

Every section has a Copy link control, and every block has a small link button in its top right corner, which appears when you hover over the block and stays faintly visible on a touch screen. Either one copies an address that points straight at that part. These addresses keep working: the brand can retitle a section or move a block and your link still lands in the right place.

Copying a color

A color card gives each value its own row and its own copy button:

The big block of color at the top of the card copies the hex when you click it, and every value is also selectable text. A brand can show only some of these rows.

Tints, shades and whole palettes

Under the values is a row of lighter and darker steps of the same color. Where the brand turned the scale on, each of the eleven steps copies its own hex, and the brand's own color is marked with a ring. Above the cards, Copy CSS, Copy SCSS and Copy JSON take the whole palette at once. Each card also shows contrast readings against White and Black. More on the readings is in Color, contrast, tints and shades.

The other things that copy

Typography blocks put a Copy name button beside each font. Brand copy blocks have a Copy button for the tagline and the boilerplate paragraph, and the legal block copies its copyright notice.

Downloading a file

A manual can have a downloads section with logos, fonts and templates, and a Downloads button in the top bar jumps to it. Each file is a tile with its name, an optional note and the format; click one and it opens in a new tab or starts downloading. The brand can group files under headings, and the rest sit under Everything else.

• You cannot select several files and zip them on a published page. That is in the dashboard asset library, which needs an account. See Uploading files.
• Pictures elsewhere in the manual are not download tiles. Use your browser's own save, or ask the brand to add the file here.
• A tile leads nowhere if the brand deleted the file.

The PDF

Press Download PDF in the top bar. You get the whole manual as an A4 document under the manual's own name. It looks like the published page: the same templates, colors, typefaces and backgrounds. What is in the document, and what is left out, is in The manual as a PDF.

• A private or password protected manual has no PDF button. Ask the brand to send you the document.
• Making the PDF can take a few seconds. If the message says the PDF could not be rendered, wait a moment and press the button again.
• The brand's plan sets how many PDFs can be made a minute. Go over it and the message says Too many PDF renders; wait a minute and try again.

Printing from your browser

Ctrl P or Cmd P prints the page with its own print rules. The progress bar, the Top button, search and the copy controls are dropped, sections are kept whole where they fit, and every external link is printed with its address after it. To send the document to somebody else, use the PDF button instead.

Dark and light

The brand sets a manual to light or dark under Color mode, and every reader sees the same one. There is no switch on the public page, and the page does not follow your system setting. Printing and the PDF follow it too. If a manual is hard for you to read, tell the brand. The setting is described in Accent color, header image, dark mode and density.

On a phone

Nothing is left out of the phone version. The row of section links becomes a Sections button that opens the same numbered list, Search stays in the bar, and wide tables scroll sideways inside their own box.

The parts you can tap

Why two manuals look different

Every manual uses one of 5 presentation templates, chosen by the brand. Navigation, search, copying and printing work the same in all of them; the typography and spacing differ.

At the bottom is the brand's own note, linking to their website where they gave one. Beside it, Made with Stylehub links to the product, unless the brand is on a plan that lets them hide it and has.

What is recorded about you

The page counts two things for the brand: which sections readers stop at, and which files they click. A section counts once per visit.

• No cookie is set for this, and nothing that says which reader you are is sent. If your browser sends Do Not Track or Global Privacy Control, nothing is sent at all.
• A password gate does set one cookie, so you are not asked for the password again on every page.
• Checklist ticks, your place on the page and anything you copy stay in your browser.

What the brand sees is in What visitors did, and what is not measured.

When something is not there

If you would rather have the data

Everything on a public manual is also available as JSON and as design tokens, with no key. See the API examples (opens in a new tab), the API documentation (opens in a new tab) and Design tokens, in thirteen formats.