# Easier way to replace templates in Franklin.jl?

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/easier-way-to-replace-templates-in-franklin-jl/87322>\
**Category:** General Usage\
**Tags:** franklin\
**Created:** [September 15, 2022, 5:26pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/easier-way-to-replace-templates-in-franklin-jl/87322 "2022-09-15T17:26:47Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![wsshin](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/wsshin/32/360_2.png) [@wsshin](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/wsshin)\
**Post date:** [September 15, 2022, 5:26pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/easier-way-to-replace-templates-in-franklin-jl/87322/1 "2022-09-15T17:26:47Z")

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I am trynig to test various templates for my website generated by `Franklin.jl`. Currently I am doing this by `newsite("<top directory>", template="<new template name>")`, but this seems to overwrite the top directory, which contains the website contents. This makes it difficult to compare different templates for the same website contents.

Is there a way to change the template without overwriting the top directory entirely?

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**Author:** ![tlienart](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/tlienart/32/7640_2.png) [@tlienart](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/tlienart)\
**Post date:** [September 16, 2022, 2:10pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/easier-way-to-replace-templates-in-franklin-jl/87322/2 "2022-09-16T14:10:42Z")

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This is not as straightforward as we may like.

One thing you can do is to do `newsite(...)` multiple times, and copy over everything that’s not `_css` , `_layout` or `_libs`. But I agree that this is not as convenient as doing maybe something like `serve(..., template="...")` but which would not be trivial to implement as some templates are more coupled with the content (this could be resolved but it’s not on my priority list).

Side note: just checking that you’re aware that this website: [https://tlienart.github.io/FranklinTemplates.jl/](https://tlienart.github.io/FranklinTemplates.jl/) shows the different templates each time with a basic website for quick comparisons?

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**Author:** ![wsshin](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/wsshin/32/360_2.png) [@wsshin](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/wsshin)\
**Post date:** [September 16, 2022, 3:07pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/easier-way-to-replace-templates-in-franklin-jl/87322/3 "2022-09-16T15:07:03Z")

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> [@tlienart](#):
>
> This is not as straightforward as we may like.

Thanks for the confirmation! Knowing that this is not straightforward saves my time, as I don’t have to dig in the documentations to find an easy way to do it.

> [@tlienart](#):
>
> Side note: just checking that you’re aware that this website: [https://tlienart.github.io/FranklinTemplates.jl/](https://tlienart.github.io/FranklinTemplates.jl/) shows the different templates each time with a basic website for quick comparisons?

Yes, this template website is very useful! But I wanted to compare the templates with my specific contents.

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**Author:** ![mahmah](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/mahmah/32/214326_2.png) [@mahmah](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/mahmah)\
**Post date:** [September 10, 2026, 4:21pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/easier-way-to-replace-templates-in-franklin-jl/87322/4 "2026-09-10T16:21:07Z")

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Yeah that would be great to have!