Publishing and Web Content Management : New in SharePoint 2013 (part 7) - SEO Page Optimization - Edit Master Pages

Edit Master Pages

SharePoint 2013 now makes the task of creating new master pages and uploading custom branding for master pages easier. The Design Manager contains capability to convert HTML into master pages for your site and to create new starter master pages, without the need for SharePoint Designer.

1. Open your publishing site.
2. Click the gear icon.
3. Select the Design Manager menu item.
4. Click the link to edit master pages.
5. Click the link to create a minimal master page.
6. Provide a name and then click the OK button.
7. SharePoint creates a new minimal master page, with the name you provided, in the Master Page Gallery.

   The following steps demonstrate how to create a new master page from an existing HTML template:

8. Navigate back to the Design Manager.
9. Upload an HTML template (and associated files) to the Master Page Gallery—I used a mapped drive to the Master Page Gallery, created earlier.
10. From the Design Manager page, click the link to edit master pages.
11. Click the link to convert an HTML to a SharePoint master page.
12. Navigate to the HTML file in the Master Page Gallery.
13. Click the Insert button.
14. Wait for SharePoint to convert the HTML file, which will appear in the list of converted master pages.
15. Click the name of the converted master page.
16. You should now see a preview of the converted master page—mine looks like that in Figure 18.

    

    Figure 18. Converted master page from HTML

17. Click the Snippets link at the top of the page.
18. You should now see the snippets manager (Figure 19).

    

    Figure 19. Snippets manager

The snippets manager, shown in Figure 19, allows you to insert common SharePoint markup into your converted master page file. Typical snippets include those for navigation, breadcrumbs, site logo, etc.