What is a Web Design Template?

A template is a set of professionaly created design files used as a starting point for building a web site - primarily a layered Photoshop master file, images, HTML, CSS and other supporting files.

This collection of design files is built knowing that you will adjust and edit the original design somewhat to create your own web site..

What do I get with my Web Design Template?

The files that are supplied are:

• Layered, editable Photoshop file (you will need Adobe Photoshop to edit it.. but other graphic software programs will work too.. like the freely available GIMP or you can also try the programs listed below under Low Cost or Free Software section) including slice data
• Helpful how-to PDF Guide "How To Use a Web Template"
• The sliced image files that are exported from the Photoshop file
• A finished HTML page which references all the sliced image files (you can use Dreamweaver, Front Page, CoffeeCup or any HTML editor with these HTML files)
• CSS (Cascading Style Sheet)
• Font files that are needed for the design (note these are primarily Windows fonts. If you are on a Mac you may need to select a new font for any areas that you need to edit)
• 3 free royalty-free image file credits (you can choose any files you need) from BigStockPhoto.com
• Some files (as noted) contain Flash headers and supporting files - see an example of this here.

Why purchase a Web Design Template?

• Templates are an enormous time saver - creating the art, html, css and other files takes a lot of time, on average about 8 hours per design. It's hard to beat the $35-$40 price.
• Extremely economically priced, at about $35-40 each
• Templates allow web developers with minimal design experience or those in a rush to create beautiful professional grade web sites in a fraction of the time
• Allows developers to offer their clients a WIDE variety of design styles
• Excellent learning tool - having a template allows artists to study and dissect the Photoshop file to learn how high-end design tricks and techniques are done

Who can use a Web Design Template?
There are primarily two reasons to buy a web design template: Either you have knowledge of how to create a web page and make a web site, and how to use Adobe Photoshop 7.0 or above (remember you will need this program to easily edit the design as needed) - or, you are purchasing the template for your web developer who will be putting your site together.

If you have no knowledge of how to create a web site and/or do not intend to use Adobe Photoshop to edit/adjust your template, then you will need someone who does.

Any web developer in the world will know what to do with all the files. The Adobe Photoshop graphics program, which is the world's leading graphic art program, is used by every web developer (or maybe 99.9%!)

What else will I need to create my site?
Every web site in the world needs a 'web site host" - this is a place to post your web site files so that others may see your site on the internet. You will need a web site host. We recommend www.ClientReady.com if you need an ecommerce site or easy-to-edit tools for maintaining the site yourself, or www.iPowerWeb.com if need standard web hosting.

You will also need a way to edit the Photoshop file (and Flash files if you buy a Flash Header template). Typically this means you will need the Adobe Photoshop software and if you are editing Flash, the Macromedia Flash MX software. There are some other third party graphics programs that allow you to edit the Photoshop and Flash files also, but you will need to check and see if your program allows Photoshop or Flash editing.

You will need a certain amount of know-how to create any web site of course also.

How many web site design pages are included?
All CHP-XXXX named templates are homepage templates. If you click on the TemplateMonster links you will locate others with 4 digit names like 4322, 5890, etc and those are virtually all multi-page templates. The multi-page templates from TemplateMonster include a homepage, about us page, contact us page, product listing page and product detail page, etc.

Can I create more pages with the CHP templates?
Yes absolutely you can add more pages. They are editable in Dreamweaver or any HTML program. And what most designers do is buy the homepage design, make a few changes to meet their needs in Photoshop... then export any new GIFs or JPGs as needed where they made graphical changes.

Then they have a workable homepage with all their own tweaks. Then they duplicate that homepage 5 or 10 times to create the subpages and simply rename where appropriate to be called AboutUs.html, Contact.html, Services.html etc etc. and replace the body area with whatever is appropriate for those pages.

How soon will I receive my template files?
Normally you will receive download instructions for your template within 30 minutes or less, unless it's very late at night or we have trouble confirming the validity of your order due to Fraud Prevention checks (we get a lot of fraud unfortunately). 95% of all orders are completed and sent within 30 minutes or less. Worst case is that you will receive your information next business morning. Weekends can occassionaly cause a delay.

How will I change the photos and text in the template to match my needs?
Using the layered Photoshop file, and your copy of Adobe Photoshop, you'll replace any photos with your own and re-type any text in the template to match your needs...including text on graphics and buttons etc.

Note that each item on the template exists in it's own separate Photoshop layer.. so it's easy to delete, edit, move or replace.

Editing text in your template: When you attempt to re-type text from graphical parts of the template, you may not have the font that was originally used installed in your computer - Photoshop will alert you to this and tell you the name of the font you are missing. To correct this, simply locate the needed font(s) in the /fonts folder that you received with your template, and drag the fonts into your C:\Windows\Fonts\ folder of your PC. Mac users, drag fonts into your /Library/Fonts folder on OSX or /System/Fonts/ on OS9 or earlier.

After that you should be able to edit the text with the fonts that you see on the template. In rare cases, you may want to re-start Photoshop to be sure it finds the newly installed fonts.

You ALWAYS have the option to use a DIFFERENT font, any font you like, to replace what was used on the template. Feel free to use your own fonts instead of the ones we used in the template.

After I make changes, how do I make my web page reflect these changes?
You will need to re-export the parts of your template that you have changed and get those re-exported files (GIFs or JPGs) into your /images folder that we supplied in your template files. The re-exported files must be named EXACTLY like the original image files that you are replacing.

To do this you turn on Slices View in Photoshop (click View... Show... Slices). Then click "File... Save For Web" and you'll get a large dialog box pop up. Shift-click the slices you wish to re-export using the Slice Tool and your Shift key. Once you have all the slices you intend to export highlighted together click "Save".

In the dialog box that appears, make sure you are in the folder called 0078 or 00231 or whatever template you bought. If you are in your template folder you should be able to see your "/images" folder.

In the dialog box select the export "Images Only" and "Selected Slices Only". Enter simply the word "index" (without the quotes) as the NAME in the file name field. Click "Save".

If you've done it correctly you will probably get a warning that asks if you wish to replace some files that already exist in the images folder.. click "yes".

To check your work, open the .HTML file we supplied you in a web browser. You should see your changes.

If you don't there are a few things that could have happened:

• Your images that you just exported are not named the same as the original files in your /images folder for some reason. Correct this manually if needed.
• You may have altered your .HTML file so that it is not looking in your /images directory anymore for some reason. Re-open the HTML file and make sure all your images say <img src="/images/index_04.jpg" or whatever the image name is.. the important part is in bold. Correcting the path from the .html file to the images is the most common problem and easy to correct.

If I can't make my web site on my own can you do it or help me?
Unfortunately, we are not in the business of creating web sites. We supply ready to use templates, and some help files to assist you, but if you need more help understanding how to use the files chances are good that you're in over your head and might want to consider getting a web site developer to help you. Creating a web site, uploading it, tweaking it, etc is a complicated matter that many people learn over a period of months or years normally.

Can I use Front Page or Dreamweaver or other HTML editors to edit the HTML pages?
Yes absolutely.

Do I need a graphics software program like Photoshop to make changes to the art or photos?
Yes you do... Photoshop will work best because all the art files are native Photoshop .PSD files. But you can also make due with free or low cost programs listed below.

Can I order by phone?
Sure! Call us at 530-852-4867 Mon-Fri during normal business hours to place your order with MasterCard, VISA or Amex.

More questions?
Email us here or call us at 530-852-4867 Mon-Fri during normal business hours - thanks!

Low Cost or Free Software

Here's a list of free Windows based graphics image editing programs and HTML programs that will allow you to re-sample your image into other sizes and resolutions:

Windows Image Editing Software >>

Windows HTML Editors >>

Here's a list of free Mac OSX based graphics image editing programs and HTML programs that will allow you to re-sample your image into other sizes and resolutions:

Max OS Image Editing Software >>

Mac OS HTML Editors >>