Updating a Page Template to propagate through to pages using said template

Question

I am using SP2013. I'm looking to create a page template which will be used on all project pages within a site. I have Department pages using the Team Site template. Within each Department, we have a Projects list. This list gives a high level summary of what's going on in each project. The list item has a link to the a detailed project page. Each project gets its own project page. I have created a 'template' page which I'm using as the starting point for each new project page that gets created.

The problem I'm having right now is that every time I make an update to a project page, I have to go and update 30 other project pages. Is there a way to create a project page template for these pages so if I make a change to the template, it will push through to the rest of the pages using this template.

Also, please excuse any mistaken terminology. I am new to SharePoint.

Answer 1

Ended up going a different route. I created one project page with all the web parts I needed on it along with a Query String Filter web part. This allowed me to update one template page and have it propagate through to all the projects using this page.

Answer 2

What are you looking for is what is know a Page Layout (a simple .aspx page created usually via SharePoint Designer direclty on the Top-Level site in the Page Layouts catalog - stored usually as /_catalogs/masterpage/), which functions as a Template to be applied and exchanged (many can be created) whenever needed. Practically, this means that as soon as you created and applied one such template to your pages, by changing and publishing the new version of the Page Layout, all pages using it shall be updated to use it.

There is a catch: This is only available in Publishing sites (meaning that the Publishing Infrastructure features at Site Collection level must be activated, as well as on all sub-sites - make sure you read more as this will change the way you work with Pages on these sites- not really meant for Collaboration, by default), and also one other issue to be aware of is that the Page layout is only scoped at the site collection level.

This practically means that if, by any chance, your sites are part of different Site Collections, the only way to "share" this template is via Cross-Site publishing (in SharePoint 2013) or manually copying it in SharePoint 2007/2010, which goes way beyond the scope of your intended complexity.