By Eddy R.
08/31/99

Being able to manage web pages is extremely important to web builders. Unfortunately, most web builders ignore or never think about a powerful feature of HTML Editors that allows easy management of web pages. This neat and powerful feature is Templates.

Templates are sets of pre-designed formats that can be applied to web pages and can be customized at any time. Here is an scenario that will help you see why templates are so important.

Let's say that you are in charge of maintaining a web site that contains 500 documents (web pages), and part of your job is to update every day, each web page with the latest info (news) on the company for which you are working for. To be able to update all 500 web pages, you would have to open every single one of those pages and make the necessary changes, this, if you ask me, is just not feasible. The time needed to access 500 pages would be too great and no one in their right mind would carry out such task everyday!

Well, here is where templates save the day. If all 500 documents were created using templates, all you'd have to do to update those documents (web pages), is access the template used to create the documents and update it. Once you save the changes, all 500 documents will be updated. That's it! It's simple, and best of all, you only need to access one document to update 500.

There are many more advantages to using templates, the one mentioned above, is the most important. Also, keep in mind that there are disadvantages and that using templates may not always suit your web building needs. You should also note that some HTML editors do not support the use of templates or site wide changes. To find out if your HTML editor supports templates, check the user's manual the came with the editor.

One last word of advice. Use templates only if you know what you are doing. I've heard stories of people losing all their data when trying to use templates because they weren't familiar with how templates work.

If you'd like more info on templates, check the user's manual that came with your HTML editor. Most HTML editors also have tutorials that teach you how to use templates and other neat features.