There are several possible problems here:
For Dreamweaver to correctly recognize the existence of a template, the folder in the root of the site must be Templates , not Templates .
Once Dreamweaver “correctly” sees the “Template”, you need to make sure that the correct code is present in the child HTML files, so Dreamweaver knows which files to update through the template. This code takes the form of HTML comments scattered throughout the page. After the <html> , you will always have the following line:
After that, editable areas are indicated by code that will look like this:
stuff you can edit
Without the above, child pages will not respond to the template.
Now for the real bad news. If the existing pages do not match the template exactly, you will have all sorts of problems so that the template plays well with the existing content. Running Modify | Template | Apply Template Modify | Template | Apply Template Modify | Template | Apply Template on the page, when the page is already fully formed, will create a dialog box in which you will be asked to specify the content in editable areas in the template. But if the rest of the design elements are different from what the template contains, Dreamweaver will keep those tags next to the one that introduces the template, which usually creates a ton of duplicate tags and broken layouts.
You would be better off creating new blank pages from the Dreamweaver template and copying / pasting the contents into the editable area, and then overwriting the "old" pages with the Save As command.
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