To tell you the truth, I wasn’t that familiar with the whole Ruby thing when I decided to start using Jekyll. I practically had to learn it by trial, error and finally success since I couldn’t really find a good guide on how to do it. I thought that it would be good to write it all down and share it (mostly for my own sake).

Installing Ruby

• Go to RubyInstaller and download the latest version.
• Run the installer.

Note: It’s really important that you install it in a directory without a space in it’s path as stated in the installer, eg: C:\ProgrammingLanguages\Ruby and NOT C:\Program Files\Ruby, for example. Trust me.

Installing DevKit

• Run the DevKit Installer and extract it to your desired directory.
• Open up the command line and type cd + the path to the directory were you installed DevKit, eg: cd C:\ProgrammingLanguages\DevKit.
• Type ruby dk.rb init to intialize the setup.
• Type ruby dk.rb review to check if DevKit has found your Ruby directory.
• Type ruby dk.rb install to install it.

Note: I usually just search for “cmd” in the start menu search bar to open the command line.

Installing Jekyll

• Type gem install jekyll in the command line.

Running Jekyll

After you’re done with creating your site with template and liquid tags (hit the wiki to check them out), do the following:

• Open up the command line and type cd + the path to the directory were you’ve saved your site, eg: cd C:\User\MySite.
• Type jekyll --server in the cmd.
• Type out localhost:4000 in your browser to see your site.

Note: You can use jekyll --auto --server instead of jekyll --server if you want Jekyll to generate and update your site continuosly while you write and save a new post, change the layout etc.