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Manual Setup

Build a complete Telar exhibition in your browser using GitHub and Google Sheets. No software to install.

You will need:

Part 1: Set Up All the Technical Bits

This part might feel daunting, but you only have to do it once. Once everything is set up, you won’t need to come back here — everything else is creative work in your spreadsheet.

Create Your Repository

A repository is your project’s home on GitHub — it holds your images and configuration files.

  1. Visit the Telar template
  2. Click the green Use this template button
  3. Choose Create a new repository
  4. Give your repository a name — use all lowercase letters and avoid spaces (hyphens are fine) — this will be part of your site’s web address
  5. Click Create repository

GitHub screenshot: Use this template button

Enable GitHub Pages

GitHub Pages turns your repository into a live website for free.

  1. In your repository, go to Settings → Pages
  2. Under Source, select GitHub Actions
  3. Click Save

Setting up GitHub Pages with GitHub Actions

Duplicate the Google Sheets Template

Your Google Sheets spreadsheet is where you manage all your content — objects, stories, and text.

  1. Go to https://bit.ly/telar-template
  2. Click File → Make a copy
  3. Save to your Google Drive with a descriptive name (e.g., “My Telar Exhibition”)

Share and Publish Your Sheet

Your spreadsheet needs two types of access so Telar can read it during builds.

Share your sheet:

  1. Click the Share button in Google Sheets
  2. Set access to “Anyone with the link” with Viewer permissions
  3. Copy the shared URL

Publish your sheet:

  1. Go to File → Share → Publish to web
  2. Click Publish
  3. Copy the published URL

Configure Your Site

Edit the _config.yml file in your repository to connect everything:

  1. Navigate to _config.yml and click the pencil icon to edit

  2. Site settings — fill in your site’s name and description:

    title: "My Exhibition"
description: "A visual narrative about..."
author: Your Name

  3. Web address — set your site’s URL:

    url: "https://yourgithubusername.github.io"
baseurl: "/your-repository-name"

    Your site will be available at https://yourgithubusername.github.io/your-repository-name.

    It is very important that your baseurl matches the name of your repository exactly. Baseurl must be in all lowercase, so if you gave your repository a name with capitals please go and change it now.

  4. Google Sheets — paste in the URLs you copied:

    google_sheets:
  enabled: true
  shared_url: "https://docs.google.com/..."
  published_url: "https://docs.google.com/..."

  5. Theme (optional) — choose a visual theme:

    telar_theme: "paisajes"  # Options: paisajes, neogranadina, santa-barbara, austin

  6. Click Commit changes to save

Editing config: title and URL Editing config: theme

Verify Your Setup

After committing, GitHub Actions will automatically build and publish your site. This takes 2–5 minutes.

  1. Click the Actions tab to watch the build progress
  2. When it finishes, visit your site at the URL you configured
  3. You should see an empty Telar site with your title and theme

Telar homepage with title and navigation menu

If the build fails or your site doesn’t look right, double-check your _config.yml carefully. Common mistakes:

  • Unclosed quotes — every " needs a matching "
  • Missing space after colon — write title: "My Site", not title:"My Site"
  • Wrong indentation — nested settings like shared_url must be indented with spaces, not tabs
  • Mismatched baseurl — must match your repository name exactly, in all lowercase
  • Only one Google Sheets URL — you need both the shared URL and the published URL; they are different

See the Configuration Reference for the full list of settings. You can also paste your _config.yml into the Telar Config Validator to check for errors, or use the Config Generator and Editor to build one from scratch.

Next Steps

Your site is configured and running. Continue with the Getting Started tutorial: