template???

I am building a site and I want every page to have to same look.

I am putting the left navigation and menu bar and the top logo and headline on everypage.
Everything in between them will be differant depending on the page.

I want all the code for the left nav bar and headline on one file and when I start a notepad page for the home page and other pages I want to reference the original file (without having alot of the same code on every page) with a line of code and then put in the extra code for whatever will be seen on that page. I hope I have explained this properly.

What I mean is - I want one notepad page that defines the left nav. bar and heading and then on the source for the pages I want to reference this 'template' file and then add the code for each individual page - not have redundant code on every page.

How do I do this?

This is not a question of style sheets, so please in answering, don't confuse what Im askiing with .css's. It is somewhat like style sheets in that if, for example, I want to change the displayed heading logo I only have to do it on the original 'template' file ..........

Im thinking it has to do with the 'link' tag in the head, but I can't get any of the attributes to this tag to work ......... or maybe its not the 'link' tag ..... lol

Thanks to all who respond ............

Could use php Include() explained here: http://www.hardcoder.com/scripting/p...lude_files.php

asp.net you can also do this with a header page but I can't remember how.
I think thats what you are asking.

EaseEZ - cheers mate ........... by AO standards I waited an abnormally long amount of time for a response and answer to this question ...... and finding it myself wasn't easy as I wasn't sure what to look for .......

The link you provided (after reading just the intro) looks to be what I was looking for and was quickly bookmarked.

again, cheers mate.......

If you are looking to a unified website looking without a lot of redundant designing and coding, why not using CSS ????

Plenty of tutorilas are avilable out there...

I hope I could be of help


Cheers

Cheers BC ...... I do use CSS but it was not practical in this case.
I needed to put all the code for the left nav bar and heading on one file to call it to all the pages, so If I changed or reordered something I didn't have to do it on all the source pages.

It wasn't just a matter of the formatting of the text and such - it was a matter of having one page access to the code of all the pages.

thanks for taking the time to reply though.