Create A Custom Page Layout For SharePoint Online

It can be noticed that the existing elements/placeholders that come along with the page layout by default are placed in “divs” inside the HTML, as seen below. The idea is to get rid of these elements and then include our own HTML. For inserting SharePoint components in our page layouts, we will make use of “Snippets”. We will build our page layout, something of this sort.

Now, after removing the default SharePoint Components we go ahead and write down our own custom HTML inside the page layout. Make sure that all your HTML is written inside the ASP content placeholder with the ID “PlaceHolderMain”. The screenshot below depicts the same (removing existing SharePoint components and where to write our custom HTML)

Insert a small HTML table snippet as shown below in the space reserved on the previous screen. Think of the HTML table as the container for inserting our web part zones. Here is the HTML below,

<p style="color:red">
    <b>SPS Industries Communities Services</b> - We actively look for Volunteers interested in lending a helping hand
</p>

<table style="width:90%; min-height:300px">
    <tr>
        <td rowspan="2" style="border:2px solid red"> Space for Webpart Zone 1 </td>
        <td style="border:2px solid green"> Space for Webpart Zone 3 </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td style="border:2px solid green"> Space for Webpart Zone 3 </td>
    </tr>
</table>

Step 3. Get code for inserting web part zones.

Click on the Preview page as shown in Step 2, and click on the “Snippets” link present in the right-hand top corner.

Once the Snippet page opens, click on “Web Part Zone” as shown in the image below. On clicking the link, the HMTL snippet will be generated with a unique ID (every time you click on the “Web Part Zone” a new unique ID is generated and integrated with the HTML snippet).

On a side note, there are a whole bunch of snippets available in the Snippets gallery. Do explore the other types. The usage is the same for every type of them. Select the snippet type, and a new code of HTML snippet will be generated, which can then be copy-pasted and used in your SPD.

Copy the HTML snippet and paste the entire code in the HTML table’s first cell (i.e. inside the first <td> block replacing the “Space for Web part Zone 1”.

Repeat this step 2 more times. Make sure that you click on Web Part Zone and the page refreshes with a new ID before copy-pasting the HTML snippet.

The code will look similar to this.

On completion of the code, save the page, check in, and then Publish a major version.

Step 4. Edit any page to use the new page layout.

Now - all the heavy lifting has been done, and it is time to reap the benefits of your hard work.

Go ahead and click on the “Edit” page. It can be noticed that the SPSPageLayout can be found under the Articles content type. Select that and see the page change its layout to the one you’ve created!

There you go! The screen above shows how a page looks using the newly created customized page layout.

This article can also be found in my personal blog – SharePoint Surgeon.