Grav Helios Open Reader

Who It’s For

• Educators publishing open textbooks, course readers, and OER materials
• Students documenting individual or group projects
• Open publishers sharing structured learning resources
• Individuals or teams that want a version-controlled, GitHub or Codeberg workflow

Built for Open Publishing and Learning

A single, well-organized reader with a clear section structure – giving learners a focused reading experience and authors full control.

• Clean reading experience – a distraction-free, web-first layout optimized for focused reading
• Structured sections and parts – organize content into sections with optional part groupings for longer works
• Educational callout blocks – eleven purpose-built block types: Learning Objectives, Exercises, Definitions, Key Takeaways, and more
• Smart search – results grouped by section or part and sorted by relevance
• LMS-friendly embedding – a URL parameter displays only page content, and can adjust the Table of Contents
• Dark and light mode – readers choose their preferred theme, with automatic system-preference detection
• Open and constraint-free – publish openly, keep ownership of your content and files, and host it on almost any web server

What Sets It Apart

• Readers never lose their place – Keep My Place records the last section visited and surfaces a dismissable Continue Reading strip, across sessions and devices
• Embeds cleanly into any LMS – append ?embedded=true to any page URL for content-only display; internal links carry the parameter forward automatically
• No build pipeline, ever – edit directly in the browser-based Admin panel and changes go live immediately
• Open collaborative authoring – built-in Git Sync means changes sync automatically with no deploy cycle; collaborators contribute directly via Git
• Plain text export for open access – optionally generate structured plain-text endpoints for every page, ready for search indexing, ebook pipelines, and AI-based tools
• Ready for the 5Rs, no extra step – plain Markdown means your content is already ready to retain, reuse, revise, remix, and redistribute

Migrating an existing Pressbooks book? The companion Pressbooks Converter (Beta) transforms a Pressbooks XHTML export into a complete Open Reader in minutes – sections, chapters, learning objectives, H5P activity links, cover image, license, and OER attribution all carried across automatically.

Behind the Scenes

• No database, no complexity – runs on simple text files, easier to back up, version control, and migrate than database-driven platforms
• Team-ready – multi-user editing with role-based access rights for team-managed reader content
• Supports open-source sustainability – the Grav Premium Helios theme requires a license, and that revenue directly funds continued development of open-source Grav CMS

Why Grav?

A mature, stable platform that just completed its biggest release yet – Grav 2 brings a modern admin panel experience, a built-in API, AI-ready content and workflows, and support for the latest PHP versions. File-based content you fully control, no database required, and updates go live immediately with no build process required. Ten years on, 15.7k+ GitHub stars, and built for what’s next.

What’s Included

• Reader home page with cover image, title, subtitle, authors, edition, and CC license badge
• Pre-configured demo sections with sub-pages
• Educational callout block examples (Learning Objectives, Exercises, Definitions, and more)
• Embedding examples (iFrames, Google Slides, PDFs, H5P)
• OER attribution block and CC licensing support