Moving Web Parts in SharePoint 2010

By Ryan Keller

September 23, 2010 —  By now, you’ve probably been working with SharePoint 2010 and enjoying some of the new features. After all, some great advancements have been made in both the administrative and end-user aspects of SharePoint this go-around. But with some of those advancements come a few quirks that take some getting used to. This article discusses one of the quirks end users might run across when building a page using Web parts, and an easy workaround to solve it.

Let’s say you’ve got a finely tuned Content Query Web part that you’ve dropped in the Page Content control. After you’ve been working on the page for a while you decide you would like to move the Web part on the page and move it into a Web zone, so you can use the Page Content control for something else. You try dragging the Web part from the Page Content area to a Web zone, but nothing happens.

For reasons unknown, you cannot move Web parts from the Page Content area to a Web zone (and vice versa). Are you locked in to the Page Content area forever? Are you going to have to spend hours recreating your queries and content? Fortunately, the answer is no!

By using a simple export/import process, you will once again have complete control over the Web parts on your page. To begin, click the dropdown arrow next to the Web part’s title and choose Export. Save the Web part to your computer. Next, click Add a Web Part in the zone in which you’d like to move the Web part. Beneath the Categories list, click the black dropdown arrow next to Upload a Web Part. Click Browse, find the Web part on your computer, then click Upload. The Web Part menu will close (another odd quirk, since you probably weren’t done using it), so you will need to open it again by clicking Add a Web Part in one of the Web zones.

In the Categories column, a new folder will appear called Imported Web Parts. Click that folder to see your imported Web part. From here, the process is the same as adding any other Web part. Click Add to insert the Web part in its new location. All that’s left is to delete the original Web part, and you’ve successfully moved your Web part from the Page Content area.

These same instructions can be used to move a Web part from a Web zone into the Page Content area as well.

Ryan Keller is a consultant with SharePoint911.

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