Object templates

An object template is a normal Author-it object, except you use it to control the properties of other objects. When you create a new object you can base it on a template with a particular set of properties — the object inherits the settings from that template. For example, when you create a new book you'll base it on a particular book template, such as User Manual or Training Guide. When you create a topic you base it on a particular topic template, such as Chapter, Normal, or Procedure (your choice is based on the content you'll add to the topic). Each type of object has one or more templates you can choose from.

Administrators can set up templates so that objects inherit any number of their properties, and can control whether inherited properties can be customized or edited.

Using a templates makes creating and updating content easy:

Authors don't need to spend time manually selecting an object's properties. Objects will automatically inherit properties from the template they're based on.
If an author or administrator updates a template's properties, Author-it will update the properties of any object based on that template. That saves time, and ensures consistency across objects.
Templates provide extra information about an object's content, making it easier to search for and find the object you need. For example, it may make sense for some topics to use the same description. The description ACME Products could be useful for a reference topic, a chapter title, and a Honeycomb slide. By checking these topics' templates, you'll be able to easily tell them apart, despite the topics having the same description.
Templates can be used with structure templates to enforce structured authoring. Structured authoring ensures consistency across your content, and provides content blueprints for authors, which make it easier to create content.