How to create web part page and wiki page in SharePoint 2016/2013/Online

This SharePoint tutorial explains, what is a web part page and wiki page in SharePoint? How to create a web part page and wiki page in SharePoint 2016/2013 or SharePoint Online. Also, we will see, what are different types of pages in SharePoint.

SharePoint types of pages

There are various types of pages presented in SharePoint. First of all, we need to understand what is a web page.

A web page is a document that is displayed in your web browser which has a special mark-up that tells the web browser how to display it. Based on that SharePoint provides different types of Pages.

There are different types of pages in SharePoint Online or SharePoint 2013/2016.

SharePoint Wiki Page (Content Page)

You can add content to wiki pages by typing and formatting text, can insert images and Web Parts. It will be provided with a Rich text editor (WYSIWYG) to format text. WIKI pages are ideal for end-users to create and manage content on team sites.

SharePoint Web Part page

Web part pages are designed particularly for web parts. A Web Part page includes Web Part zones where you can add Web Parts. While creating a web part page, we can choose from multiple Web Part zone layouts.

Web Part pages are structured Web Part content objects including lists, libraries, and other collaborative content including rich media, web pages, search results, and an information aggregation via Rollup. Users can’t easily add text or images to Web Part pages.

SharePoint Publishing Page

A publishing page allows you to create a standard page layout and then let multiple users enter content using the page layout.

Publishing Pages are stored in the Pages library.

This library is only available when publishing infrastructure is enabled on the site. There can only be one-page libraries per site.

You can enable multiple page layouts by enabling multiple content types to the SharePoint pages library.

SharePoint Ghosted Pages

Ghosted pages are Un-Customized pages whose content doesn’t reside in the content database. i.e. these are saved as a row in the table with a null value for the content column and not null value for SetupPath column pointing to the file on the file system)

SharePoint Unghosted Pages

Customized pages where Content of the pages is stored in the content database of the site. These type of pages do not support inline coding.

Difference between Site Page vs Application Page

• An application page is deployed once per Web server and cannot be customized on a site-by-site basis. But Sites pages are specific to one site or site collection.
• Application Pages stored on the layouts folder of the SharePoint front-end web server. They are used by all the sites and site collections for that server. Site pages are stored in the content database of the site collection
• Application pages support code behind and inline scripting. But Site Pages does not support code behinds. But we can only add Web Part zones to the site pages.
• Site pages inherit the look and feel of the site whereas application pages do not inherit websites’ current master page. They will always inherit from the application master page.
• Application pages are faster than site pages. When a user requests application pages are compiled and send back to the user. Site pages are parsed when requested by the user.

Example:
Site Page: Web Part pages, default.aspx, AllItems.aspx, NewForm.aspx, EditForm.aspx
Application Pages: settings.aspx, accessdenied.aspx etc

What is a web part page in SharePoint

SharePoint web part page is a page where we can add any type of web part into the web part page. We can add web parts like a content editor, page viewer, and script editor, etc.

Create a web part page in SharePoint

Now, we will see how to create a web part page in SharePoint 2016/2013 or SharePoint Online.

First, Open SharePoint 2016/2013/Online site, then click on the gear icon. From gear icon click on Site Contents.

In SharePoint site contents page click on Site pages library.

In the SharePoint Site pages library, click on FILES tab from the ribbon.

In the files option, we can see the New Document and then click on one from the two options.

• Wiki Page
• Web Part page

Now we have to click on the Web Part Page option.

In the New Web Part Page screen, provide a Name for the web part.

Select the web part page layout. Then select the Document library where you want to Save the newly created web part page.

Now you can see the web part page got created and here you can add various web parts. Click on Add a Web Part option to add a web part to the page.

Now let us see what is a wiki page in SharePoint 2016 and how we can create a wiki page in SharePoint 2016.

What is Wiki Page in SharePoint 2016?

When we will create a wiki page SharePoint provides a page with a rich text editor, where you can add contents and also you can format content using the rich text editor feature.

You can take advantage of the WYSIWYG feature of a rich text editor. If your business users asking for a page to add content then you can give then a wiki page where they can update content. It required no developer knowledge.

How to create a Wiki Page in SharePoint

Now, we will see how to create a Wiki Page in SharePoint 2016/2013 or SharePoint Online.

First, we have to go to SharePoint 2016 site, then click on the gear icon. From the gear icon, we have to click on the Site contents page.

In site contents click on the SharePoint Site pages document library.

In the site pages template click on the FILES tab from the ribbon.

In the files option we can see New Document click on that we can see two options. From two options we have to click on Wiki Page.

Now we can see the page as below. This page is similar to Microsoft word.

This is how to create and use a wiki page in SharePoint 2016/2013 or SharePoint Online.

Ghosted and unghosted pages in SharePoint

This SharePoint 2013 tutorial, we will understand what is meaning by ghosting and unghosting in SharePoint. Ghosting and unghosting are applicable to all on-premise versions of SharePoint like SharePoint 2010/2013/2016. We will try to understand the difference between ghosting and unghosting in SharePoint.

Ghosting and unghosting concept come in files or pages in SharePoint.

Ghosting in SharePoint

In one line, Ghosting in SharePoint means, the content is stored in the file system, not in the content database. The default files associated with any site definition are by default known as Ghosted pages like the default master pages.

UnGhosting in SharePoint

If you modify those pages using SharePoint designer or using any tool, then those pages stores inside the content database and those pages become unghosted pages. Once it becomes unghosted the content will appear from the content database instead of the files system. It breaks all the references from the file system.

Ghosting pages are known as uncustomized pages, while unghosted pages are known as customized pages.

When you modify any ghosted page, it will show a message like Saving your changes will customize this page so that it is no longer based on the site definition. Do you want to continue? like below:

How to make unghosting page to ghosting page?

If you want to make the unghosted pages to a ghosted page then we can easily do by clicking on the “Reset to Site Definition” button which is available in the ribbon in SharePoint designer.

Or you can click on the “Reset to site definition” link which is available in the Site Settings page under Site Actions.

I hope you got an understanding what is ghosting and unghosting in SharePoint 2013 and how we can make an unghosting page ghosting page.

You may like following SharePoint tutorials:

• How to use People web part in SharePoint Online
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• Content Search web part in SharePoint Online
• SharePoint Online search result web part display documents created or modified by current user
• Content query web part SharePoint Online or SharePoint 2013/2016
• SharePoint Online customize search box web part
• Choice Filter Web Part in SharePoint 2016
• How to use SharePoint date filter web part in SharePoint Online
• Relevant document web part in SharePoint 2016

Conclusion

In this SharePoint tutorial, we learned what is a wiki page web part in SharePoint? What is a web part page in SharePoint?

And also, we saw how to create a web part and wiki page in SharePoint Online or SharePoint 2016/2013.