Create a page layout with custom content areas

By João Ferreira Feb 1, 2018 Branding, Office 365, SharePoint 2 Comments

Page layouts are essential on SharePoint publishing sites, they enable the creation of content with specific editable fields.

There are predefined content areas that can be reused however sometimes they are not enough to build the perfect layout.

In this article I’ll explain you how to create a basic custom page layout with multiple Page Content areas also known as Rich HTML Field.

By default, SharePoint only provides one Rich HTML Field to be used by the page layout but my goal is to use two of this areas side by side.

Create a new content area

1. On your Publishing site go to Site Settings
2. Under Web Designer Galleries click on Site Content Types
3. Scroll down to the Page Layout Content Types
   
4. Click on Article Page
5. Scroll down and click on Add from new site column
6. Provide the Column name (e.g. Page Content #2)
7. Select Full HTML content with formatting and constraints for publishing
8. In the group section select Existing Group and then Page Layout Columns
   
9. Click OK

Create the page layout

1. Open your publishing site with SharePoint designer
2. In the Navigation select Page Layouts
3. Click New Page Layout and fill the form as shown in the image below



• For the Content Type Group select Page Layout Content Types
• For the Content Type Name select Article Page
• Provide a custom URL Name and Title

Once the page layout is created it will open in edit mode

4. From the toolbox scroll down Content Fields
5. Inside the page content paste the HTML bellow to build the two columns side by side

6. Select and drag the Page Content inside the leftColumn
   
7. Select and drag the Page Content inside the rightColumn
8. Save the Page Layout, check it in and publish the major version
9. Go back to the page where you want to apply the page layout and edit it
10. From the Edit tab click on Page Layout
    
11. Select your custom page layout and add your HTML
    

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