diff --git a/ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS b/ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
index fed455829282d00b10a7622ec69812b6c83f2fc1..581d45ab3cd0e3d42b86b5a52c90e1a00e3feafe 100644
--- a/ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
+++ b/ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
@@ -2,4 +2,10 @@
 Suggested acknowledgements
 ==========================
 
-To be written.
+Researchers, please note that even though :doc:`Kwant is Free Software
+<license>`, scientific integrity obliges to give appropriate credit.  If you
+write a scientific paper whose results have been obtained with the help of
+Kwant, please acknowledge the work of the :doc:`people that have developed it
+<authors>`.
+
+Reference to Kwant paper to be added.
diff --git a/INSTALL b/INSTALL
index c267af7aebd24609b8e02b73d9b4acf638f60005..7f42a71731679270f648b3d34e33ac8ff178596b 100644
--- a/INSTALL
+++ b/INSTALL
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
-================
-Installing Kwant
-================
+=========================
+Installation instructions
+=========================
 
 Kwant can be installed either using some prepared packages (on Linux, Mac OSX,
 and Windows), or it can be built and installed from source.
@@ -11,9 +11,9 @@ will also allow them to customize Kwant to use certain optimized versions of
 libraries.
 
 
-******************************
-Installing Kwant from packages
-******************************
+************************
+Installing from packages
+************************
 
 Mac OSX
 =======
@@ -157,9 +157,9 @@ Notes
   though.
 
 
-*****************************************
-Building and installing Kwant from source
-*****************************************
+***********************************
+Building and installing from source
+***********************************
 
 Prerequisites
 =============
diff --git a/doc/source/acknowledgements.rst b/doc/source/acknowledgements.rst
deleted file mode 100644
index a57bfd60d321fd1d107ddaee20109f46195b2dd9..0000000000000000000000000000000000000000
--- a/doc/source/acknowledgements.rst
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1 +0,0 @@
-.. include:: ../../ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
diff --git a/doc/source/authors.rst b/doc/source/authors.rst
deleted file mode 100644
index 50781890eabc6df2a5eb05e21e15ee40b9ee80c6..0000000000000000000000000000000000000000
--- a/doc/source/authors.rst
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1 +0,0 @@
-.. include:: ../../AUTHORS
diff --git a/doc/source/index.rst b/doc/source/index.rst
index d0bf73f31a1ac5f76885dd56b51ae01e134d1747..40a4e1b4c084d48a7005f81769f749f5daba9e81 100644
--- a/doc/source/index.rst
+++ b/doc/source/index.rst
@@ -2,23 +2,10 @@
 Kwant documentation
 ===================
 
-.. include:: ../../README
-   :end-before: See also the files
-
-Researchers, please note that even though :doc:`Kwant is Free Software
-<license>`, scientific integrity obliges to give appropriate credit.  If you
-write a scientific paper whose results have been obtained with the help of
-Kwant, please :doc:`acknowledge <acknowledgements>` the work of the :doc:`people
-that have developed it <authors>`.
-
 .. toctree::
-   :maxdepth: 1
+   :maxdepth: 2
 
-   license
-   authors
-   acknowledgements
-   whatsnew/index
-   install
+   pre/index
    tutorial/index
    reference/index
 
diff --git a/doc/source/install.rst b/doc/source/install.rst
deleted file mode 100644
index fb170ba38934912a93d9d7ad6e62bb26ef1112e2..0000000000000000000000000000000000000000
--- a/doc/source/install.rst
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1 +0,0 @@
-.. include:: ../../INSTALL
diff --git a/doc/source/license.rst b/doc/source/license.rst
deleted file mode 100644
index bced5558975332a0d4ba96b470600a3bf82ff891..0000000000000000000000000000000000000000
--- a/doc/source/license.rst
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1 +0,0 @@
-.. include:: ../../LICENSE
diff --git a/doc/source/pre/acknowledgements.rst b/doc/source/pre/acknowledgements.rst
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..0a50677aa6eb1e60cae1135afec68132fc3cc521
--- /dev/null
+++ b/doc/source/pre/acknowledgements.rst
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+.. include:: ../../../ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
diff --git a/doc/source/pre/authors.rst b/doc/source/pre/authors.rst
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..48164d6beb1ce58625fdf00745628ddeb074eba8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/doc/source/pre/authors.rst
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+.. include:: ../../../AUTHORS
diff --git a/doc/source/pre/index.rst b/doc/source/pre/index.rst
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..6b0ef8cb990c66158b3441bc4ffa9221658a18f5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/doc/source/pre/index.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,12 @@
+Preliminaries
+=============
+
+.. toctree::
+   :maxdepth: 2
+
+   about
+   whatsnew/index
+   install
+   authors
+   acknowledgements
+   license
diff --git a/doc/source/pre/install.rst b/doc/source/pre/install.rst
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..30687c9928e87b9207b98df5b70bcd232232b0bf
--- /dev/null
+++ b/doc/source/pre/install.rst
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+.. include:: ../../../INSTALL
diff --git a/doc/source/pre/license.rst b/doc/source/pre/license.rst
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..6c40a061b96528c251acb2a65400b0d7f0194b1b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/doc/source/pre/license.rst
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+.. include:: ../../../LICENSE
diff --git a/doc/source/whatsnew/0.2.rst b/doc/source/pre/whatsnew/0.2.rst
similarity index 98%
rename from doc/source/whatsnew/0.2.rst
rename to doc/source/pre/whatsnew/0.2.rst
index 230176832ad3743fe5625804b2b675215ee7746d..db348872bda492d32afbbd3727b6a6da6f7b14f6 100644
--- a/doc/source/whatsnew/0.2.rst
+++ b/doc/source/pre/whatsnew/0.2.rst
@@ -28,7 +28,7 @@ the same time it is able to take advantage of more than 2 GiB of RAM.
 
 New tutorial dealing with superconductivity
 -------------------------------------------
-:doc:`../tutorial/tutorial5`
+:doc:`../../tutorial/tutorial5`
 
 New `~kwant.plotter` module
 ---------------------------
@@ -71,7 +71,7 @@ Band structure functionality has been moved
 The functionality that used to be provided by the method ``energies`` of
 `kwant.system.InfiniteSystem` has been moved to the `kwant.physics` package.
 See the documentation of `kwant.physics.Bands` and
-:doc:`../tutorial/tutorial3`.
+:doc:`../../tutorial/tutorial3`.
 
 Calculation of the local density of states
 ------------------------------------------
diff --git a/doc/source/whatsnew/1.0.rst b/doc/source/pre/whatsnew/1.0.rst
similarity index 99%
rename from doc/source/whatsnew/1.0.rst
rename to doc/source/pre/whatsnew/1.0.rst
index 15bbde16bbbc01c60ce95a4bf711bc7722a635bd..06e44de553c4dde0235e9795bceebbe49f6cb846 100644
--- a/doc/source/whatsnew/1.0.rst
+++ b/doc/source/pre/whatsnew/1.0.rst
@@ -80,7 +80,7 @@ actually different lattices. This often led to confusions in more convoluted
 use cases, so this behavior was changed. Now two site families created with the
 same parameters are actually indistinguishable by Kwant. If it is desired to
 make two site families which have the same geometry, but mean different things,
-as for instance in :doc:`../tutorial/tutorial5`, then the `name` argument has
+as for instance in :doc:`../../tutorial/tutorial5`, then the `name` argument has
 to be used when creating a lattice, e.g. `a = kwant.lattice.square(name='a');
 b = kwant.lattice.square(name='b')`.
 
diff --git a/doc/source/whatsnew/index.rst b/doc/source/pre/whatsnew/index.rst
similarity index 100%
rename from doc/source/whatsnew/index.rst
rename to doc/source/pre/whatsnew/index.rst
diff --git a/doc/source/reference/index.rst b/doc/source/reference/index.rst
index 95fdcf47b0cc3685b6652325bcffebd9073a23e7..4fe11d5b545546d5818bcd9bc182a8475e570313 100644
--- a/doc/source/reference/index.rst
+++ b/doc/source/reference/index.rst
@@ -1,8 +1,8 @@
-Reference guide
-===============
+Essential modules
+=================
 
-Core modules of Kwant, appearing in the order of decreasing
-end-user relevance.
+The following modules make up the part of kwant that is most visible to its
+users.
 
 .. toctree::
    :maxdepth: 1
@@ -13,20 +13,28 @@ end-user relevance.
    kwant.plotter
    kwant.solvers
    kwant.physics
-   kwant.system
 
-Miscellaneous modules for special applications.
+Modules mainly for internal use
+===============================
+
+The following modules contain functionality that is most often used only
+internally by Kwant itself or by advanced users.
 
 .. toctree::
    :maxdepth: 1
 
-   kwant.digest
-   kwant.rmt
+   kwant.system
+   kwant.graph
+   kwant.linalg
+
+Miscellaneous modules
+=====================
 
-Modules mainly for internal use.
+The following modules are not part of the core of Kwant.  They are, however,
+very useful for certain applications.
 
 .. toctree::
    :maxdepth: 1
 
-   kwant.graph
-   kwant.linalg
+   kwant.digest
+   kwant.rmt
diff --git a/doc/source/reference/kwant.solvers.rst b/doc/source/reference/kwant.solvers.rst
index 94a3369b758d66000e9b9d05ed477dc998b4ce68..4f6040fbef2dede68a48927441d54279bb56ca39 100644
--- a/doc/source/reference/kwant.solvers.rst
+++ b/doc/source/reference/kwant.solvers.rst
@@ -7,10 +7,10 @@ Overview
 Kwant offers several modules for computing the solutions to quantum transport
 problems, the so-called solvers. Each of these solvers may use different
 internal algorithms and/or depend on different external libraries.  If the
-libraries needed by one solver are not installed, trying to import it will
-raise an ``ImportError`` exception.  The :doc:`Installation instructions
-<../install>` list all the libraries that are required or can be used by Kwant
-and its solvers.
+libraries needed by one solver are not installed, trying to import it will raise
+an ``ImportError`` exception.  The :doc:`Installation instructions
+<../pre/install>` list all the libraries that are required or can be used by
+Kwant and its solvers.
 
 
 :mod:`kwant.solvers.default` -- The default solver
@@ -68,7 +68,7 @@ default solver are listed in the documentation of each module.
    kwant.solvers.sparse
    kwant.solvers.mumps
 
-For Kwant-experts: detail of the internal structure of a solver
+For Kwant experts: detail of the internal structure of a solver
 ---------------------------------------------------------------
 
 Each solver module (except the default one) contains a class ``Solver`` (e.g.