Anyone who is serious about building a professional, efficient and most importantly… a great looking Intranet or Website hosted on Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 NEEDS to know about Master Pages.

For those of you new to web design, “Master Pages” allow you to have a consistent layout throughout your entire project, without having to do some fancy coding!  I guess the best way to think of master pages is as a template for the way your whole site looks.

How do I create a Master Page in SharePoint Designer 2007?

1. Click “File” -> “New” -> “ASPX”.  This will create the file that we are going to work with
2. Click “Table” -> “Layout Tables”.  This will allow you to build a layout of your master page (what your website layout will look like!) using tables.
3. Look towards the bottom right hand corner of the screen.  You should see a “Layout Tables” pane.  Down the bottom of that pane there is a section called “Table Layout”.  In this section there are a variety of common layouts that are used on professional websites.  Have a look through each of the layouts and select your favourite.
4. Add the standard content you want to be in each part of the Master Page.  For example, you might want to put a copyright message in the footer, a page title at the top of the page etc.
5. Now we want to set up a content region.  Click where you think you will have most of your content on your page… most likely the middle cell of your layout table.  Click “Format” -> “Master Page” -> “Manage Content Regions”.  Type the name you would like to call it (in the screenshot example, I called it “middle”, but you could call it main, or content, or whatever you like!).  Click “Add”, and then click “Close”

    

6. Click “Save”.  When saving, you need to make sure that you are saving it as a master page.  To do that, click on the “Save as type” drop down box, scroll down a little, and click on “Master Page”.  Then give your page a file name and click “Save”

There you have it – your first master page in SharePoint Designer 2007!  If you want to add more content that you would like to be consistent across your entire website or intranet site – simply continue to add that content to your master page!  How easy is that!!!!

’till next time,

TNP

tags: layout, master page, sharepoint 2007, sharepoint designer, tutorial

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