Building

How to re-build all sources

By default, sphinx only builds the sources that have changed since the last build in order to make builds faster.

Some changes, like in static files (e.g. css), that have an effect on a doc file are not rebuild unless the content of that doc files itself changes.

In order to force sphinx to rebuild all sources (-a) and don’t use the cached environment from previous builds (-E), call sphinx-build directly using this command in the documentations root folder:

$ sphinx-build <my_source_directory> <my_output_directory> -a -E

for instance

$ sphinx-build source _build -a -E

Hint

It is recommended to run sphinx with the -a -E option if new files have been added to the documentation or files have been moved. This rules out that the changes are not correctly applied into the rendered output.

Hint

A common source, why changes in style are not applied when refreshing the browser is that the browser’s cache still references the previous version. In Firefox, to force the browser to refresh and discard the cache, hold down the Shift key, when refreshing the page.