2 minute read

Series note:
This post covers the fastest possible path from zero to a running Jekyll site.
In the next post, I’ll show how I improved this scaffold with better structure, styling, and a production-ready workflow.

A Beginner-Friendly Jekyll Tutorial for Those Interested in

  • learning how to design websites/blogs.
  • Building a site for work.
  • Building a living portfolio to showcase your evolving projects, professional development, etc.
  • Creating a testing/learning environment in order to practice HTML, CSS, JS, etc.
  • Practicing by implementing DevSecOps/DevOps concepts and methods in a real world development/production environment.
  • Or anything else that demonstrates your hands on technical knowledge.

Note: This tutorial is specifically For Windows Users. We’ll have an equivalent MacOS version in an upcoming post.

These are the first steps before you actually begin building your awesome site

Installing jekyll

✔ Step 1

  • navigate to RubyInstaller Downloads
  • if you’re not sure about which version to use or new to jekyll?
    • jekyll recommends using Ruby+Devkit 3.4.X (x64) installer.
    • this version has the

      largest number of compatible gems and installs the MSYS2 Devkit alongside RUBY, so gems with C-extensions can be compiled immediately.

✔ Step 2

  • use selected default options for installation
  • after installation finishes
    • click finish and the installer will automatically install the other dependencies
    • this happens because of the checked [✔️]) check box on the installation wizard.
      • this executes/runs
     ridk install
    • and is needed for installing gems with native extnesions.
    • additional documentation can be found here RubyInstaller Documentation
      • From the options list, choose 3, MSYS2 and MINGW development toolchain
  • We need to open up the powershell (ps) command line interface (CLI) or command prompt (cmd), so we can check if the application has been installed correctly.

  • Simply click then type into the search tool located on the bottom task bar.

  • Open Windows Search Tool: Windows Search icon

  • Now let’s check if Ruby has been installed correctly by running.
ruby --version
  • you should see something similar to this:
ruby 3.4.8 (2025-12-17 revision 995b59f666) + PRISM [x64-mingw-ucrt]

✔ Step 3

  • close out the terminal window and reopen so changes to the PATH environmemt are reflected.
  • Install Jekyll and Bundler using
gem intall jekyll bundler

✔ Step 4

  • Now let’s check if Jekyll has been installed correctly by running this command
jekyll -v

✔ Step 5

  • If you want to update Jekyll for any reason, run the following command, for example to update your installation (remove brackets)
gem update --system [ add version number here]

Congratulations on installing Ruby and Jekyll, you are now ready to create your blog🤓😎

  • This section shows how to create a simple blog upon which you can then build your preferred awesome site.

After installing the jekyll

gem intall jekyll bundler

Create new jekyll site at ./myblog by running this command

jekyll new myblog

Change directory to /myblog thusly

cd myblog

Build the site and make it available on your local server

bundle exec jekyll serve

Now browse to the following local web-address provided

http://localhost:4000 or something similar , by holding down ctrl on the keyboard and clicking the link to open the page in your default browser.

  • Or by copying the link and pasting it into your browser.

This tutorial is based on the Full Jekyll Documentation.

Presented by DataInsideData™ - Tech Hands, A Science Mind, and a Heart for community™.

Data Inside Data™.

Tech Hands, a Science Mind, and a Heart for Community.

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