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Sharepoint comes with a set of Text Layout Templates. How can I create my own custom Text Layouts under Sharepoint 2013 Foundation. What I'm trying to achieve is a shown below. enter image description here

PS: I do not have any publishing features or enterprise/server editions. The only tool at my disposal is Sharepoint Designer. Not Design Manager.

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The options at your disposal depend on if you are running the Enterprise SKU or one of the supported O365 plans. Generally speaking - if you are using Page layouts you already have Publishing Features Enabled (however since we may also be talking about web part pages I'll cover both)

You have the option to use the Design Manager functions for publishing pages: You can publish an HTML form with special tokens that is converted into an ASPX page for your layout. Run a search on Design Manager and you will Microsoft has published quite a bit of info. - I found Designer Manager to be fairly easy to get in do some work. It's not the most flexible and sometime frustrating, but you can move pretty fast with it.

For custom webpart pages, or modifying a single publishing page you can utilize SharePoint Designer. With SharePoint Designer you can insert new WebPart Zones and inset WebParts directly in tables, DIV, or other containers. These are done specifically to deployed pages, and are not generally used as templates. I didn't find many good resource for 2013, but 2010 works the same (NOTE in 2013 you dont get design view, you only get the code/markup).

Visual Studio gives you capabilities to create and deploy multiple different types of artifacts including custom pages.

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  • Thank you for replying, however, I have tried creating a table/div and placing webparts within. I am trying to avoid using this method because there is a chance (I'm not the only one with access to editing the page) that someone can mess with the layouts on accident. Thus replying on the hard zones illustrated above. Is it possible? Also I do not have any of the 365plans or enterprise (I know that forsure) editions.
    – Question-Everything
    Commented Dec 19, 2013 at 18:15
  • If they have access to SharePoint Designer and the rights to edit the page, you are not going to be able to stop that access. It's gives you access to the HTML/ASP.NET Code directly. If you want to limit that from the UI designer (page-edit) than remove the webpart zones and place the webparts directly on the page.
    – Jesus Shelby
    Commented Dec 19, 2013 at 18:37
  • I don't want to stop them accessing it. I need to set the page so that they can drag and drop other webparts if they want to. They have no HTML/CSS scripting experience and teaching them is not an option (unfortunately, they are busy too). Believe me, they don't want to touch any code so that is not an issue as well. But if the page is laid out in a certain way, all they need to do is drag and drop (they know how to do that) webparts. Which is why the webzones are important because they will know what sits where.
    – Question-Everything
    Commented Dec 19, 2013 at 18:47
  • I'm not understanding your problem then. You can add WebPart zones which enable that. If they won't be opening the page in SPD, then they can't change the WebPart zone layout. Design your page with DIVS or Talbes and drop the Zones in there, save it, and your users should be able to use it. If you need it to be selectable (multi-use) layout you need to packaged it in Visual Studio as a solution.
    – Jesus Shelby
    Commented Dec 19, 2013 at 19:14
  • I worry that when removing a webpart to add another in that same DIV/TABLE might be difficult for them (I have tried and the DIV "appears" gone, but it is there, just hard to select). However, after reading your last sentence it looks like that is the direction I'll have to go. Thank you.
    – Question-Everything
    Commented Dec 19, 2013 at 19:24
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Hopefully these is helpful for anyone reading this that has Sharepoint 2013 Foundation and Sharepoint Designer but NOTHING ELSE.

Create a Web Part Page that has whatever layout page that will achive your desired layout. For me; a Header, Footer, 4 Columns and a Top Row. I then open the file in Sharepoint Designer. I focused on tags like these: 

<td id="_invisibleIfEmpty" name="_invisibleIfEmpty" valign="top" height="100%"> <WebPartPages:WebPartZone runat="server" Title="loc:CenterLeftColumn" ID="CenterLeftColumn" FrameType="TitleBarOnly"><ZoneTemplate></ZoneTemplate></WebPartPages:WebPartZone‌​> </td>

This way I can still get that zones to do what it does best and still be responsive. I changed the Title="loc:(whatever makes it easier for you)" and ID and done! Knowing how the table is setup is needed but isn't hard. If you don't want the footer just delete the tags where the word Footer is rested in.

I know that this can be achieved with Design Manager or Visual Studio or any other set of tools out there. But if you're like me and don't have access to those things except for Sharepoint Designer, you can still rock!

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