---
title: Page Variables
linktitle:
description: Page-level variables are defined in a content file's front matter, derived from the content's file location, or extracted from the content body itself.
date: 2017-02-01
publishdate: 2017-02-01
lastmod: 2017-02-01
categories: [variables and params]
keywords: [pages]
draft: false
menu:
docs:
parent: "variables"
weight: 20
weight: 20
sections_weight: 20
aliases: [/variables/page/]
toc: true
---
The following is a list of page-level variables. Many of these will be defined in the front matter, derived from file location, or extracted from the content itself.
{{% note "`.Scratch`" %}}
See [`.Scratch`](/functions/scratch/) for page-scoped, writable variables.
{{% /note %}}
## Page Variables
`.AlternativeOutputFormats`
: contains all alternative formats for a given page; this variable is especially useful `link rel` list in your site's ``. (See [Output Formats](/templates/output-formats/).)
`.Content`
: the content itself, defined below the front matter.
`.CurrentSection`
: the page's current section. The value can be the page itself if it is a section or the homepage.
`.Data`
: the data specific to this type of page.
`.Date`
: the date associated with the page; `.Date` pulls from the `date` field in a content's front matter. See also `.ExpiryDate`, `.PublishDate`, and `.Lastmod`.
`.Description`
: the description for the page.
`.Dir`
: the path of the folder containing this content file. The path is relative to the `content` folder.
`.Draft`
: a boolean, `true` if the content is marked as a draft in the front matter.
`.ExpiryDate`
: the date on which the content is scheduled to expire; `.ExpiryDate` pulls from the `expirydate` field in a content's front matter. See also `.PublishDate`, `.Date`, and `.Lastmod`.
`.File`
: filesystem-related data for this content file. See also [File Variables][].
`.FuzzyWordCount`
: the approximate number of words in the content.
`.Hugo`
: see [Hugo Variables](/variables/hugo/).
`.IsHome`
: `true` in the context of the [homepage](/templates/homepage/).
`.IsNode`
: always `false` for regular content pages.
`.IsPage`
: always `true` for regular content pages.
`.IsTranslated`
: `true` if there are translations to display.
`.Keywords`
: the meta keywords for the content.
`.Kind`
: the page's *kind*. Possible return values are `page`, `home`, `section`, `taxonomy`, or `taxonomyTerm`. Note that there are also `RSS`, `sitemap`, `robotsTXT`, and `404` kinds, but these are only available during the rendering of each of these respective page's kind and therefore *not* available in any of the `Pages` collections.
`.Lang`
: language taken from the language extension notation.
`.Language`
: a language object that points to the language's definition in the site
`config`.
`.Lastmod`
: the date the content was last modified. `.Lastmod` pulls from the `lastmod` field in a content's front matter.
- If `lastmod` is not set, and `.GitInfo` feature is disabled, the front matter `date` field will be used.
- If `lastmod` is not set, and `.GitInfo` feature is enabled, `.GitInfo.AuthorDate` will be used instead.
See also `.ExpiryDate`, `.Date`, `.PublishDate`, and [`.GitInfo`][gitinfo].
`.LinkTitle`
: access when creating links to the content. If set, Hugo will use the `linktitle` from the front matter before `title`.
`.Next`
: pointer to the following content (based on the `publishdate` field in front matter).
`.NextInSection`
: pointer to the following content within the same section (based on `publishdate` field in front matter).
`.OutputFormats`
: contains all formats, including the current format, for a given page. Can be combined the with [`.Get` function](/functions/get/) to grab a specific format. (See [Output Formats](/templates/output-formats/).)
`.Pages`
: a collection of associated pages. This value will be `nil` for regular content pages. `.Pages` is an alias for `.Data.Pages`.
`.Permalink`
: the Permanent link for this page; see [Permalinks](/content-management/urls/)
`.Plain`
: the Page content stripped of HTML tags and presented as a string.
`.PlainWords`
: the Page content stripped of HTML as a `[]string` using Go's [`strings.Fields`](https://golang.org/pkg/strings/#Fields) to split `.Plain` into a slice.
`.Prev`
: Pointer to the previous content (based on `publishdate` in front matter).
`.PrevInSection`
: Pointer to the previous content within the same section (based on `publishdate` in front matter). For example, `{{if .PrevInSection}}{{.PrevInSection.Permalink}}{{end}}`.
`.PublishDate`
: the date on which the content was or will be published; `.Publishdate` pulls from the `publishdate` field in a content's front matter. See also `.ExpiryDate`, `.Date`, and `.Lastmod`.
`.RSSLink`
: link to the taxonomies' RSS link.
`.RawContent`
: raw markdown content without the front matter. Useful with [remarkjs.com](
http://remarkjs.com)
`.ReadingTime`
: the estimated time, in minutes, it takes to read the content.
`.Ref`
: returns the permalink for a given reference (e.g., `.Ref "sample.md"`). `.Ref` does *not* handle in-page fragments correctly. See [Cross References](/content-management/cross-references/).
`.RelPermalink`
: the relative permanent link for this page.
`.RelRef`
: returns the relative permalink for a given reference (e.g., `RelRef
"sample.md"`). `.RelRef` does *not* handle in-page fragments correctly. See [Cross References](/content-management/cross-references/).
`.Section`
: the [section](/content-management/sections/) this content belongs to.
`.Sections`
: the [sections](/content-management/sections/) below this content.
`.Site`
: see [Site Variables](/variables/site/).
`.Summary`
: a generated summary of the content for easily showing a snippet in a summary view. The breakpoint can be set manually by inserting <!--more--> at the appropriate place in the content page. See [Content Summaries](/content-management/summaries/) for more details.
`.TableOfContents`
: the rendered [table of contents](/content-management/toc/) for the page.
`.Title`
: the title for this page.
`.Translations`
: a list of translated versions of the current page. See [Multilingual Mode](/content-management/multilingual/) for more information.
`.Truncated`
: a boolean, `true` if the `.Summary` is truncated. Useful for showing a "Read more..." link only when necessary. See [Summaries](/content-management/summaries/) for more information.
`.Type`
: the [content type](/content-management/types/) of the content (e.g., `post`).
`.URL`
: the URL for the page relative to the web root. Note that a `url` set directly in front matter overrides the default relative URL for the rendered page.
`.UniqueID`
: the MD5-checksum of the content file's path.
`.Weight`
: assigned weight (in the front matter) to this content, used in sorting.
`.WordCount`
: the number of words in the content.
## Page-level Params
Any other value defined in the front matter in a content file, including taxonomies, will be made available as part of the `.Params` variable.
```
---
title: My First Post
date: date: 2017-02-20T15:26:23-06:00
categories: [one]
tags: [two,three,four]
```
With the above front matter, the `tags` and `categories` taxonomies are accessible via the following:
* `.Params.tags`
* `.Params.categories`
{{% note "Casing of Params" %}}
Page-level `.Params` are *only* accessible in lowercase.
{{% /note %}}
The `.Params` variable is particularly useful for the introduction of user-defined front matter fields in content files. For example, a Hugo website on book reviews could have the following front matter in `/content/review/book01.md`:
```
---
...
affiliatelink: "http://www.my-book-link.here"
recommendedby: "My Mother"
...
---
```
These fields would then be accessible to the `/themes/yourtheme/layouts/review/single.html` template through `.Params.affiliatelink` and `.Params.recommendedby`, respectively.
Two common situations where this type of front matter field could be introduced is as a value of a certain attribute like `href=""` or by itself to be displayed as text to the website's visitors.
{{< code file="/themes/yourtheme/layouts/review/single.html" >}}
It was recommended by {{ .Params.recommendedby }}.
{{< /code >}}
This template would render as follows, assuming you've set [`uglyURLs`](/content-management/urls/) to `false` in your [site `config`](/getting-started/configuration/):
{{< output file="yourbaseurl/review/book01/index.html" >}}
It was recommended by my Mother.
{{< /output >}}
{{% note %}}
See [Archetypes](/content-management/archetypes/) for consistency of `Params` across pieces of content.
{{% /note %}}
### The `.Param` Method
In Hugo, you can declare params in individual pages and globally for your entire website. A common use case is to have a general value for the site param and a more specific value for some of the pages (i.e., a header image):
```
{{ $.Param "header_image" }}
```
The `.Param` method provides a way to resolve a single value according to it's definition in a page parameter (i.e. in the content's front matter) or a site parameter (i.e., in your `config`).
### Access Nested Fields in Front Matter
When front matter contains nested fields like the following:
```
---
author:
given_name: John
family_name: Feminella
display_name: John Feminella
---
```
`.Param` can access these fields by concatenating the field names together with a dot:
```
{{ $.Param "author.display_name" }}
```
If your front matter contains a top-level key that is ambiguous with a nested key, as in the following case:
```
---
favorites.flavor: vanilla
favorites:
flavor: chocolate
---
```
The top-level key will be preferred. Therefore, the following method, when applied to the previous example, will print `vanilla` and not `chocolate`:
```
{{ $.Param "favorites.flavor" }}
=> vanilla
```
[gitinfo]: /variables/git/
[File Variables]: /variables/files/