# Why does local django docs have a different styling/theme than the official one?

**URL:** <https://forum.djangoproject.com/t/why-does-local-django-docs-have-a-different-styling-theme-than-the-official-one/32761>\
**Category:** Website\
**Created:** [July 7, 2024, 2:31pm UTC](https://forum.djangoproject.com/t/why-does-local-django-docs-have-a-different-styling-theme-than-the-official-one/32761 "2024-07-07T14:31:22Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
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**Author:** ![medmunds](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/forum.djangoproject.com/medmunds/32/22140_2.png) [@medmunds](https://forum.djangoproject.com/u/medmunds)\
**Post date:** [May 29, 2026, 7:48pm UTC](https://forum.djangoproject.com/t/why-does-local-django-docs-have-a-different-styling-theme-than-the-official-one/32761/3 "2026-05-29T19:48:10Z")

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I wanted to raise this again and see if we can find a solution. The CSS mismatch between the production docs site vs. local/preview builds complicates working on the docs. It’s not just color schemes: there are (visual) semantic differences between the two styles. Example below.

If there’s a licensing issue with the DSF owning the docs site styles, I’d think that could be solved somehow. (Do we know anyone at the DSF? 😁) Maybe we could vendor the DSF’s CSS into Django’s docs with the DSF’s license intact, like we do for other vendored code (such as docs/\_theme/djangodocs/static/fontawesome).

Here’s an example: we want to `versionchanged::` two things related to the same function. There’s a bug in my reST source—can you spot it from the local docs build? (I didn’t.)

> ![docs-screenshot-local-build](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/uploads/djangoproject/original/3X/0/b/0b441d003add0b3f2b78433a9e0cd9482571a532.png)

The mistake becomes visible on the production site: both of those paragraphs were meant to be inside the `versionchanged::` directive, but only one is:

> ![docs-screenshot-live-site](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/uploads/djangoproject/original/3X/a/7/a79bb4a282ba83b402a10dc6f54cc2b299d543a3.png)

I ran into this particular issue in my own recent documentation work. But I’m guessing it’s not the only significant difference between the old and new docs CSS.

[Related aside: The bundled CSS on [docs.djangoproject.com](http://docs.djangoproject.com) is missing a `/*!` license or copyright comment for DSF’s CSS, making it seem like it’s covered by FontAwesome’s MIT license statement from earlier in the bundle.]

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