How to pull a custom column into a Page Layout in SharePoint 2010

1. Open your page layout in SharePoint Designer
2. In the toolbox > server controls > drag and drop ListItemProperty to desired location (I prefer code view for accuracy>
3. You should have something like the following: <SharePointWebControls:ListItemProperty runat="server" id="ListItemProperty1" />
4. Add Property value using desired property name – this is where it can get complicated
   • If you have spaces in a custom field use “_0x0020_” to represent the space
   • If you are pulling secondary lookup fields, the colon is represented by “_x003a_”
   • If you are using a core SharePoint field/property you will need to find the correct property name in documentation. About the only thing named what you would expect is Title (“Title”) so you can use this as a test property. Reference

Examples

Below is an example of a final property tag where the column name is “MyColumn”

<SharePointWebControls:ListItemProperty runat="server" id="CustomListItemProperty" Property="MyColumn" />

 

Below is an example of a final property tag where the column name is “Associated Document:Link Title”

<SharePointWebControls:ListItemProperty runat="server" id="CustomListItemProperty" Property="Associated_x0020_Document_x003a_Link_x0020_Title" />

Using lookup custom properties to build a link

Now we can do something fun, like pull in a link from custom columns in another list:

<a class=”associated-document-link” target="_blank" href='<SharePointWebControls:ListItemProperty runat="server" id="ListItemProperty1" Property="Associated_x0020_Document_x003a_LinkUrl" />’>
<SharePointWebControls:ListItemProperty runat="server" id="ListItemProperty2" Property="Associated_x0020_Document_x003a_Link_x0020_Title" /></a>

Here we are pulling the Link Url and the Link Description from the Documents library based on the associated document selected by the user in a custom lookup field in the page settings. These additional custom fields are then used to build a link to the document which opens in a new window.

Note: to get the path url you need to create a workflow to put the link in a custom field in the Documents library – in this case it is called “LinkUrl”. Once it is in a custom field, the column can then be pulled in to another list.

The benefit of this is that when the document changes, or the title/description changes on the associated document, it will change on every page which references it in the site. You have just saved an hour or more of editing for yourself.

A simpler way would be to just have the link open in the same window – in which case just a link property/field could be created in the Pages Library. I would only use this if I was referencing another site page with navigation on it, so as not to lose the viewer. The link url, in this case called “DocumentUrl”, would be easily referenced as in the following example:

<SharePointWebControls:ListItemProperty runat="server" id="ListItemProperty1" Property="DocumentUrl" />