Creating alternate templates
While Shopify has always allowed the creation of alternate templates it was previously a cumbersome practice. With OS 2.0 the process while still imperfect is at least somewhat more streamlined.
Follow these steps to create additional templates for your pages, products, and collections:
- In the theme editor (Online store/Themes/Customize) click on the template picker in the top middle to reveal your themes available templates
- Click on a Template type to reveal it's existing templates or to create another, for this tutorial we will choose pages
- Click on create template and in the dialog give it a name and choose which template base it will inherit it's initial sections and settings from and click the create template button.
- This will create a template and take the editor straight to that page. From here choose your sections and settings to format your appearance. Make sure to save when done.
- When you are ready to apply this template to a page in your store, from your Shopify admin open: Online store > Pages (or Products/Collections/Blogs, depending on which type you're editing) and open the page and under Template choose your new template.
- Save the page and then re-visit that page within the theme editor to ensure your satisfaction with it's appearance.
Tip: Don't overdo it, create alternate templates only where needed. Creating templates will make those templates unique to your current theme. These templates will not exist in other themes or updated theme versions. We recommend to keep a log of new templates created so that you can duplicate them quickly in future.
