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Contribute to this documentation

Contributing to documentation can be a fantastic way to get started as a contributor to open source projects, no matter your level of experience!

The Ubuntu Desktop documentation is a collaborative effort between Canonical and the Ubuntu community. All types of contributions are welcome, whether you are new to Ubuntu Desktop and want to highlight something you found confusing, or you're an expert and want to create "how-to" guides to help others.

We hope to make it as easy as possible to contribute. If you find any part of our process doesn't work well for you, please let us know!

The Open Documentation Academy

Ubuntu Desktop is a proud member of the Canonical Open Documentation Academy (CODA). If you are a newcomer to making open source contributions, or new to technical writing and want to boost your skills -- or both! -- we will be glad to help.

Check out the CODA repository for guidance and useful resources on getting started.

Prerequisites

There are some prerequisites to contributing to Ubuntu Desktop documentation.

  • Code of Conduct

    You will need to read and agree to the Ubuntu Code of Conduct. By participating, you implicitly agree to abide by the Code of Conduct.

  • GitHub account

    You need a GitHub account to create issues, comment, reply, or submit contributions.

    You don't need to know git before you start, and you definitely don't need to work on the command line if you don't want to. Many documentation tasks can be done using GitHub's web interface. On the command line, we use the standard "fork and pull" process.

  • Licensing

    This documentation is available under the Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license. The same license will apply to your contributions.

    You don't have to sign the Canonical License agreement (CLA) for this project.

The Ubuntu Desktop docs overview

This documentation is hosted in GitHub and rendered on Read the Docs. You need to create a GitHub account to participate, but you do not need a Read the Docs account.

Contribution types

There are many different ways to contribute to the Ubuntu Desktop documentation, including many options that don't require any coding knowledge. To find out more, check out the Types of contributions listed for the Ubuntu Server documentation.

General workflow

Most contributions are made on GitHub by working on your machine and submitting your changes in a pull request (PR) via the command line. This workflow is outlined in these broad steps described for Ubuntu Server:

If you can't find an issue you want to work on, feel free to look around the docs and see what improvements you think you can make.

For spelling and grammatical changes on a page, which are quick and easy to submit, feel free to create a PR. For more substantial changes or suggestions, we suggest creating an issue first, so that we can discuss and agree on an approach before you spend time working on it.

Make sure you check the issue list before submitting a PR -- if you start working on a task that is listed and already assigned to someone else, we won't be able to accept your PR.

Ensure accessibility

We want to make Ubuntu Desktop accessible and usable for everyone. Please make sure that your contribution follows the best practices:

  • Add alternative text to all your images. For details, go to Images in the Markdown Guide.

  • Check the readability index of the files that you edit:

    In your pull request, open Checks and look for errors in Vale readability checks. Stay below grade 11 of the SMOG and Flesch–Kincaid index. Higher grades result in an error.

    Use simple words and short sentences. To learn what makes for readable text, use the interactive Hemingway Editor.

Thank you!

Lastly, we would like to thank you for spending your time to help make the Ubuntu Desktop documentation better. Every step in the right direction is a step worth taking, no matter how large or small.