ScrollStories transform academic writing into immersive visual narratives. By combining scholarly depth with dynamic scrolling, they invite readers to experience research as a journey—guided by full-screen images, creative typography, and layered design.
Perfect for public humanities projects, digital history, or visual essays, ScrollStories make complex ideas accessible and engaging. Whether showcasing research findings, historical narratives, or cultural analysis, this format offers a powerful way to share scholarly work that feels both elegant and alive.
ScrollStories use specialized components that respond to scrolling, creating a cinematic reading experience:
Full-screen background images that change as you scroll, with text appearing in semi-transparent boxes over the imagery.
Horizontal scrolling text panels that move left while images remain fixed, creating a unique reading flow.
ScrollStories also use all the standard page components—images, pull quotes, footnotes, headers—styled specifically for the scrolling format.
We’ve created three template essays at different complexity levels. Each uses the same content, but demonstrates progressively more features. View them, then duplicate and modify them to create your own ScrollStory.
For first-time users, students learning basics
The simplest ScrollStory, focusing on fundamentals:
For intermediate users ready for a few more features
Adds visual sophistication:
For anyone wanting all features at their fingertips
Shows everything Xanthan can do:
No matter what Xanthan template you start with, you’ll get a folder with the all the scrollstory examples.
If you don’t have have a site: Follow the getting started guide
Duplicate a sample essay and edit away following the design guides as you need them.
Stuck? See Tips on troubleshooting