Templates are reusable structures that you can apply to multiple items; they’re very useful if you have items that share the same structure.

A template is a saved custom structure, which can be easily applied to other similar items at once. An example of this would be having a structure saved as a template called 'Blog Post', which contains all fields needed to capture content on a typical blog post page or an employee bio page for staff profile pages on a new website.

Tip: Plan to migrate your content using one of our CMS integrations? All of our integrations with CMS systems work on template mappings, so we recommend saving all item structures as templates if you plan to migrate your content.

Tip: Can't see the Structure tab? You might not have access to the structure editor. Speak with the person who invited you to GatherContent to fix this.

1. Navigate to the Structure tab.

2. Click the 'New template' button. You will then be taken to the structure editor.

3. Drag the fields that you want in this structure from the left onto the middle of the page to build up your structure.

Tip: You can re-order the fields by clicking the 6 dots (also known as the 'drag handle') at the far-right of a field and dragging and dropping it into a new position.

Customise fields with field names to reflect the content you want to collect. You can also add instructions below the field for further clarity or a word or character limit. Some field types allow you to apply certain settings to them to help gather specific content. Read our related articles on repeatable fields and rich and plain text.

4. Save the structure by clicking the 'Save' button.

Tip: Click on the dropdown and choose 'Save & close' to save the changes and go back to where you were.

If you've created a custom structure on an item (not via the Structure tab), you can save it as a template.

Inside structure edit mode, click the dropdown button next to 'Save' and select 'Save as template'.

Tip: If you're currently looking at a template, and not a custom structure, you won't see the 'Save as template' option.

You can apply a template to one item or to multiple items at once.

1. From within the item, click the 'No template applied' link.
2. Choose the template to apply from the dropdown.
3. Click 'Apply template'.

1. Go to the content hub in the main navigation.

2. Select the items you'd like to apply the template to. They will appear highlighted once selected. You can hold 'Shift' on the keyboard to select multiple items.

Tip: If you want to do this for ALL items in a project, click on the 'All items' folder on the left sidebar. Select an item, and then scroll all the way to the bottom of the page. Then click 'Select all' from the toolbar.

3. From the toolbar at the bottom of the page, select 'Apply a template'.

Tip: When you update a template, the changes you make will affect all items using that template. This makes it really easy to manage large numbers of items.

4. From the pop-up, select the template to apply from the list. 

Be careful! If you already have content on the item, applying a new template will overwrite that content. So make sure you've duplicated the items first if you want to keep the content!

5. Press 'Confirm' to apply the template.

You can learn how to import, duplicate and delete templates in our Managing Templates article.