SharePoint 2010 – Page Layout button disabled in the ribbon – how to enable it

You want to change the Page Layout of a SharePoint 2010 Publishing Page but face this when you check out and edit the page:

It’s not secret that SharePoint has some interesting quirks, hence all the SharePoint blogs.  There are many reasons why the Page Layout button gets disabled in the ribbon:

• You don’t have sufficient permissions
• The page layout you are currently using has defects
• JavaScript errors
• etc.

If you DO have sufficient permissions and you’ve tried some of the other basics, this is something that may help.  I’m maintaining someone else’s masterpage and page layouts and from the looks of it, one of them has an error in it.  I don’t have the time to troubleshoot or repair either of them, so this is a workaround.

You’ll need the following:

• Sufficient Privileges
• SharePoint Designer (and SharePoint Designer access enabled on the server)

Find the file you are editing in SharePoint Designer (usually something like All Files > Pages > Your File.aspx)

Right-click on it and select Detach from Page Layout.

You should be prompted with a box similar to this:

and then (after you hit Yes):

Now the Page Layout markup is embedded directly into your page and is no longer attached to any Page Layouts.  Note: This is also handy if you want to make HTML edits or XSLT webpart edits directly in the page (which you can’t do through the Web UI).

Now:

• Go back to SharePoint in your browser, navigate away from the page and back to it (to ensure a full refresh).
• Put the page in edit mode (Site Actions > Edit) or the Edit icon
• Go to the Page tab in the ribbon (to get to the Page Layout button)

You should see your Page Layout icon enabled:

Once you change the Page Layout here, SharePoint will remove custom markup from your page and attach the new Page Layout (so you do not have to Reattach the page layout in SharePoint Designer).

NOTE: When you right-click on the file in SharePoint Designer, it will give you the option to Reattach Page Layout.  If you do this, you will reattach the old page layout – it’s giving you that option because it hasn’t refreshed yet.  Hit F5 to refresh the Page list or close and reopen SharePoint Designer.  When you right-click on the file, you’ll see the option to Detach Page Layout again (which is correct).

Hope this helps you out!