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Creating Templates for Page Layouts

You can create page layouts with settings that you might want to use in other projects in the future. See About Templates, About Page Layouts, and Adding Page Layouts.

example

Let's say you are creating dozens of manuals. You want to make sure that each manual is the same height and width, uses the same margins, and contains page numbers in the same location in the footer. In order to obtain the configuration you want, you create a page layout. However, you save this page layout as a template. That way, you do not have to re-create the same page layout in each project. Instead, you simply add a new page layout to a project and select your template. All of the pages and settings are already included in the new page layout for you.

How to create a template for a page layout

1. In Flare, create the page layout.

   See About Page Layouts.

2. Save the file.
3. In Windows Explorer, locate the folder where you stored your Flare project when you first created it.

4. Navigate to the Content Explorer subfolder that is holding the page layout that you created.

   The page layout file has an .flpgl extension.

   example

   Let's say you have created a page layout named "Procedure.flpgl" in a project that is located here: My Documents\My Projects\TheBigProject. If you use the default folder in the Content Explorer for storing the file, you would find the page layout file here: My Documents\My Projects\TheBigProject\Content\Resources\PageLayouts\Procedure.flpgl. This is the file that you would copy.

5. In the My Documents folder on your computer (not in the Flare project), create a subfolder and name it My Templates (if it does not already exist).

   This subfolder will be used to hold all of the different templates that you create in Flare projects, as well as templates for other MadCap Software applications.

   Note: In Vista, the folder is called "Documents" instead of "My Documents."

6. In the My Templates subfolder, create another subfolder and name it PageLayouts.

7. Paste your new page layout template file in that subfolder.

   example

   Using the same example from above, you would copy the following page layout template file: My Documents\My Projects\TheBigProject\Content\Resources\PageLayouts\Procedure.flpgl. And you would paste it here: My Documents\My Templates\PageLayouts.

   The next time you attempt to add a new page layout, you can select My Templates in the dialog to display (and select) any page layout template file that you've created.

See Also

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