Summary: Using Dreamweaver templates involves highlighting an area that can be edited, right-clicking the selection, clicking on "Templates" from the drop-down menu and clicking on "Choose New Editable Region." Create and use templates to save time when building a series of Web pages with instructions from a certified Dreamweaver tutor in this free video on Web design.
Dave Casuto is a certified Dreamweaver tutor working in San Francisco, Calif.read more
"Hello everyone my name is Dave Casuto from San Francisco Computer Tutors and in this video tutorial we are going to show you how to use and create templates using Dreamweaver. Templates will be very valuable for you to save time and energy so you don't have to basically create the same thing over and over gain within your website. So the way to tell Dreamweaver that a certain part is going to be editable versus another part being static is you want to highlight the area first of all or you can even put your mouse where you want it to be and say o'kay you know what I want this part that I just highlighted to be an editable region so in other words when you are using this template in the future that is the only part that can be edited. So very simply so I am going to highlight this and I'm going to right click or control click on the Mac and you see I have this drop down menu pop up, this short cut list, and I'm going to go to templates and you see I have all these different options here and what I am going to do is I am going to choose new editable region and then I'm going to name this and I'm just going to call this main body and click okay and now see I have got main body now highlighted in blue there so when I actually use this this part will be editable within the main body. So I'll choose this right up here and I'm going to right click or control click on the Mac and then say new editable region and I'm going to call this heading one and click o'kay and now that is editable for me. Now everything else outside the page like Story Street and all of my links up here are not going to be editable once I use this as a template so this is a nice fast way of basically keeping all of your hard work intact so you don't have to continually reinvent the wheel for yourself. So o'kay here is my great website. Now another thing you'll notice is that it maintained all the different page properties so if you have any different style sheets applied to it, it maintains all of them. So you see here I have a certain head tag to it and I have different font elements to it as well. So that is templates in a nutshell and don't forget about your assets panel. This is where you are going to find them and then you can add new templates by coming down to your panels down here. You can edit it. You can create a new one. You can refresh based on new information you put in there and then you can also apply the template to pre-existing things that you are working on as well. So that's it for templates. Enjoy. Well that concludes our exercise in creating templates in Dreamweaver. Hope you enjoyed that. Once again my name is David Casuto from San Francisco Computer Tutors and give me a jingle any time. My business is listed in yelp.com under San Francisco Computer Tutors and I hope to hear from you soon. Thanks."
eHow Article: How to Use Dreamweaver Templates