The presentation templates

A template is the layout your published manual is drawn in. There are 5 to choose from, and switching between them changes nothing you have written.

Change the template

WhereDashboard, Brand manual, Settings, Basics

1. Open Brand manual (opens in a new tab) and pick your manual.
2. Switch to the Settings tab beside Content.
3. In the Basics group, pick one of the 5 choices under Layout template.
4. Press Save settings. The button stays inactive until something has changed.

The preview beside the form redraws as soon as you pick, before you save. It shows your real sections, and it appears on wide screens only. On a narrow screen, save and look at the published page.

You need the manual:write permission, the same one that lets you edit sections. See Roles.

The 5 templates

A new manual starts on Editorial unless you change it.

Which one to pick

Trying one costs nothing. Switch, look at the preview, switch back. Nothing is written until you save.

What a template does not change

Your content. Sections and blocks, their order, their text, their images and their anchors are all untouched. Your other design settings still apply on top of whichever template you are on:

• Accent color paints the hero in all 5, and the section header band in Canvas. Without one, each template uses its own hero color.
• Header image sits behind the cover in all 5.
• Color mode has a dark palette in every template.
• Density picks between three vertical spacings, and each template has its own three, so compact in Grid is not compact in Minimal.
• Section numbers can be turned off, which removes the numeral wherever a template puts one. In Bold that also removes the large numeral behind each section.
• Custom fonts replace the typeface a template would otherwise use for headings and for body text.
• Navigation, footer note and white label behave the same in all 5.

Those settings are covered in Accent color, header image, dark mode and density, Fonts, licenses and specimens, Color and Themes.

What your plan includes

2 of the 5 are on every plan, including Free. The other 3 come with Pro and Business.

On a plan without them, the paid templates still appear in the picker with a Pro badge and cannot be selected, and a line under the list says 3 more templates come with Pro. with a See plans link to Billing (opens in a new tab). If a save asks for a template your plan does not cover, it is refused with The Bold template is part of Pro and Business. and an offer to upgrade. What you typed in the rest of the form stays in place.

The plan that counts is the plan of the account that owns the brand, not the plan of whoever is editing. The full comparison is in What each plan includes. The upgrade is on the pricing page (opens in a new tab) and in Billing (opens in a new tab).

After a downgrade

A manual already on a paid template keeps it. It stays published and keeps drawing the same way. What you lose is the ability to move to a different paid template: your choices become the one you are on and the 2 free ones.

A manual frozen by a downgrade cannot have its template changed at all, along with every other setting, until it is made active again or the plan is raised.

Duplicates, versions and restores

Where the template shows up

• The published page at your brand address. See Publishing.
• The PDF, which is drawn in the same template. See PDF export.
• The preview beside the settings form.
• Not the editor, which is the same for all 5, and not the API (opens in a new tab), which answers your sections and blocks as data with no layout in them.

Not the same as a starting template

Two different things share the word. A layout template is how a manual is drawn, changeable at any time, with no effect on content. A starting template is the set of sections and blocks a new manual is created with, chosen once when you make it. Picking a layout later does not change those sections. See From nothing to a published manual.