Introduction to content types
Content types (content type: A reusable group of settings for a
category of content. Use content types to manage the metadata,
templates, and behaviors of items and documents consistently. Content
types are defined at the site level and used on lists and libraries.)
enable organizations to organize, manage, and handle content in a
consistent way across a site collection. By defining content types for
specific kinds of documents or information products, an organization
can ensure that each of these groups of content is managed in a
consistent way.
In this article
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What is a content type?
How content types work at the site level
How content types work in lists and libraries
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What is a content type?
In the course of a single project, a business might produce several
different kinds of content, for example, proposals, legal contracts,
statements of work, and product design specifications. Although these
documents might be stored together because they are related to a
single project, they can be created, used, shared, and retained in
different ways. A business might want to collect and maintain
different kinds of metadata about each kind of content.
Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2010 enables organizations to
define these different sets of documents as content types. A content
type is a group of reusable settings that describe the shared
behaviors for a specific type of content. Content types can be defined
for any item type in Office SharePoint Server 2010, including
documents, list items, and folders. Each content type can specify:
The columns (metadata) that you want to assign to items of this type.
The document template on which to base new items of this type
(document content types only).
The custom New, Edit, and Display forms to use with this content type.
The workflows that are available for items of this content type.
The custom solutions or features that are associated with items of
this content type.
The information management policies that are associated with items of
this content type.
The Document Information Panel, which is available in compatible
Microsoft Office programs for items of this content type.
The document conversions that are available for items of this content
type (document content types only).
Content types provide organizations with a way to manage and organize
content consistently across different lists and libraries in a site
collection (site collection: A set of Web sites on a virtual server
that have the same owner and share administration settings. Each site
collection contains a top-level Web site and can contain one or more
subsites.), and they also make it possible for a single list or
library to contain multiple item types or document types.
How content types work at the site level
Content types are organized into a hierarchy that allows one content
type to inherit its characteristics from another content type. This
allows categories of documents to share attributes across an
organization, while allowing teams to customize these attributes for
particular sites or lists.
Content types are first defined centrally in the Site Content Type
Gallery for a site. Content types that are defined at the site level
are called site content types. Site content types are available for
use in any subsites of the site for which they have been defined. For
example, if a site content type is defined in the Site Content Type
Gallery for the top-level site in a site collection, it is available
for use in lists and libraries in all of the sites in that site
collection. Site content types can be added individually to lists or
libraries and customized for use in those lists or libraries. When an
instance of a site content type is added to a list or library, it is
called a list content type. List content types are children of the
site content types from which they are created.
How inheritance works for site content types
When you define a new custom site content type in the Site Content
Type Gallery for a site, you start by choosing an existing parent site
content type in the Site Content Type Gallery as your starting point.
The new site content type that you create inherits all of the
attributes of its parent site content type, such as its document
template, read-only setting, workflows, and columns. After you create
this new site content type, you can make changes to any of these
attributes.
Whenever you make changes to site content types, you can specify
whether you want these changes to be applied to any other child site
content types or list content types that inherit their attributes from
these site content types. Only the attributes that the child site
content types or list content types share with a parent content type
can be updated. If a child site content type has been customized with
additional attributes that the parent site content type does not have
(for example, extra columns), these customizations are not overwritten
when the child site content type is updated. Changes that you make to
a site content type do not affect the parent site content type from
which the site content type was created.
How site content types support content management
By defining site content types, you can ensure that entire categories
of documents are handled consistently across your organization. For
example, all customer deliverable documents in an organization may
require a specific set of metadata, such as account number, project
number, and project manager. You can help ensure that account numbers
and project numbers are associated with all of the customer
deliverable documents in your organization by creating a Customer
Deliverable site content type that has required columns for each of
these items of metadata. All customer deliverable document types in
the site collection that inherit from this site content type then
require users to specify information for these columns. If you need to
track additional metadata related to these customer deliverable
documents, you can add another required column to the Customer
Deliverable site content type. Then you can update all child list
content types that inherit from this site content type, adding the new
column to all customer deliverable documents.
How content types work in lists and libraries
If you have a list or library that is set up to allow multiple content
types, you can add content types to this list or library from the
group of site content types that are available for your site.
When you add a content type to a list or library, you make it possible
for that list or library to contain items of that type. The New
command in that list or library lets users create new items of that
type. One of the key advantages of content types for lists and
libraries is that they make it possible for a single list or library
to contain multiple item types or document types, each of which may
have unique metadata, policies, or behaviors.
How inheritance works for list content types
When an instance of a site content type is added to a list or library,
it is a child of the site content type from which it was created. This
list content type inherits all of the attributes of its parent site
content type, such as its document template, read-only setting,
workflows, and columns. A list content type can be customized for the
specific list or library to which it has been added. These
customizations are not applied to the parent site content type. If the
parent site content type for a list content type is updated, the child
list content type can inherit these changes (if the person who
maintains the site content type chooses to apply the updates to all
child content types). If any of the attributes that the child list
content type shares with the parent site content type were customized
for the list content type, these customizations can be overwritten
when the list content type inherits the changes from the parent site
content type. If the list content type has been customized with
additional attributes that the parent content type does not have (for
example, extra columns), these customizations are not overwritten when
the child list content type inherits changes from the parent site
content type.
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