How to use an existing article as a template

If you produce the same kind of page again and again, a weekly notice sheet, a monthly newsletter, a standard event page, there’s no need to start from scratch each time. Any article can be copied and used as the starting point for a new one.

Copying an article

1. Log in to your web office and select the group that holds the article you want to copy.
2. Open the Documents tab.
3. On the quick options menu (the three dots to the right of the article’s name), choose ‘Open a Copy’. The editor opens straight away with the original’s content in it.
4. Amend the content as you need. Nothing has been created yet at this point, so the copy only exists once you save it.
5. Give it a new title under Properties, check the publish date, then save and publish when ready.
6. Need the copy in a different group? Use ‘Move to another group’ from the same quick options menu.

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Good to know

• The copy doesn’t appear on your site until you publish it, so you can work on it at your own pace.
• This is also a handy way to take a quick backup of a page before making big changes to it, since there’s no version history to fall back on.
• The copy keeps the original’s layout and formatting, which is exactly what keeps recurring pages looking consistent.
• Copying this way also keeps any modules in the article, such as video players, working in the copy. Copying and pasting an article’s source code into a new one doesn’t, so always duplicate with ‘Open a Copy’ rather than by hand.