Page layouts are used to organize the display of fields, buttons, custom links, inline Visualforce pages, Report Charts, and related lists on an object detail or edit page. They are used to establish unique layouts for different business scenarios.

The displayed fields within a related list are controlled by the page layout; the name of the related list is determined by the lookup/master-detail relationship on the related object.

Page layouts are comprised of sections that contain buttons, fields, related lists, and customer links that can be edited using the enhanced page layout editor, as shown in the following screenshot. Here, we are showing how we can edit the properties of the Account Site field.

Within the field sections, the user interface can be used to make a field required or read-only, as shown in the following screenshot:

The enhanced page layout editor showing read-only settings, as indicated with the padlock icons, is shown in the following screenshot:

In the corresponding Account Edit page, the required field for Account Site is displayed with a red bar, as shown:

You can combine page layouts and field-level security to create the lowest possible permission setting. For example, a hidden field (field-level permission) will never be displayed regardless of the page layout. Likewise, a field marked as Always requires a value in this field to save a record will always be required on the page layout.

Page layouts allow you to create and organize sections on a page and show or hide fields within sections.

Creating and modifying a page layout

To create or modify a page layout, navigate to Setup | Customize. Select the appropriate object and click on Page Layouts. In the Page Layouts page, you can either click on the New button or choose the existing page layout to modify and click on Edit, as shown in the following screenshot:

When clicking on the New button, you can optionally choose an existing layout to copy.

Tip

Creating a page layout based on an existing page layout

In the enhanced page layout editor, select an existing page layout from the list of page layouts, and then click on Save As to create a copy of the layout.

In the original page layout editor, select an existing page layout from the list of page layouts, and then click on the Clone button.

Enter a name for the new page layout and finally, click on Save.

You can set different page layouts for profiles and different page layouts for record types.