Documentation AEM Guides AEM Guides Documentation

Configure global or folder-level profiles

Last update: May 14, 2025

Topics:
Profiles

CREATED FOR:

Experienced
Admin

In an enterprise, different groups or products may use different authoring templates, output templates, conditional attribute profiles (or subject schemes), and Web Editor configurations. Configuring these only at an enterprise (or global) level can make authors experience difficult, as they will see templates or profiles that are not relevant to them.

AEM Guides allows you to configure authoring (topic or map) templates, output templates, conditional attribute, and Web Editor configurations at an enterprise (global) level as well as at a folder level. This way, you can segregate the configurations for different departments or products in your enterprise.

Also, you can delegate the folder-specific configurations to a department or product administrators to decentralize the administration.

Using the Folder Profiles tile in the Guides settings, you can configure settings under the following tabs:

General: The general tab is only available when you are configuring folder-level (or project/product) settings. You can configure settings such as the folder paths on which the settings will be applicable and users who will have administrative rights to create or update configurations.
Conditional Attributes: Use this tab to configure conditional attributes at global or folder-level. A conditional attribute is a combination of the attribute name and value, and you can also define a label for it. You can use the standard DITA attributes or your own custom attributes. The conditional attributes that you define at the global level are made available to all users across projects. In case you have defined folder-level conditional attributes, then they are merged with the globally defined conditional attributes.
Templates: Use this tab to configure the templates that your authors will use to create or publish DITA content. The following topic templates are available out-of-the-box:
- Glossary
- Reference
- Topic
- Concept
- Task
- Troubleshooting
- Blank
- DITAVAL
NOTE
You can use any of the existing templates as a base to create new templates. The Blank DITA template does not contain any structure or elements like the other templates. You can use any of the OOTB DITA templates as the base, make modifications to it, and save it with a different name. After making the required changes, add the updated template to the global or folder-level authoring templates configuration, then it becomes available for authoring.

Along with topic templates, you can also define the map templates that will be made available to authors. The following map templates are available out-of-the-box:
- Map
- Bookmap
Output Preset: Similar to Templates, there are five pre-configured output presets:
- AEM Site
- PDF
- HTML5
- EPUB
- Custom
Publishers can use these out-of-the-box output presets to publish content. These presets can be configured by an administrator of the global or folder-level profile. Once configured, the publishing presets become available to the publishers for newly created DITA maps. You can also apply publishing presets to existing DITA maps, see Apply preset changes for more details.
XML Editor Configurations: Use this tab to customize the look-and-feel and various features of the Web Editor. The following configurable settings are available for the Web Editor:
- XML Editor UI Configuration
- XML Editor Page Layout
- XML Editor Configuration
- CSS Template Layout
- XML Editor Snippets
- XML Content Version Labels
- Rootmap (only at folder level)

You can configure both — global profile and folder-level profile. In a folder-level profile, you can define the folders on which the settings will be applicable. These settings include the conditional attributes, templates, output presets, and XML Editor settings. The conditional presets, templates, and XML Editor configurations are then made available to authors who work in the configured folders. Similarly, publishers will have access to the configured output presets defined within the configured folders.

A folder-level profile overrides the settings configured in the global profile. In other words, if a folder has a folder-level profile, then it will show the templates, output templates, and XML Editor settings configured in its corresponding folder profile. It will not show the settings configured in the global profile. However, this does not apply to the conditional attributes. In case of conditional attributes, the conditional attributes are merged at global and folder levels.

The following sections walk you through the process of configuring global profile and folder-level profiles.

Configure global profile

Perform the following steps to configure the global profile:

Log into Adobe Experience Manager as an administrator.
Click on the Adobe Experience Manager link at the top and choose Tools.
Select Guides from the list of tools and click the Folder Profiles.

For the first time the Folder Profiles page is shown with only the Global Profile tile.
Click on the Global Profile tile.
To configure Conditional Attributes, see Configure conditional attributes for global or folder-level profiles.
To configure Templates, see Configure authoring templates.
To configure Output Presets, see Configure output presets.
To configure XML Editor Configuration, see Configure and customize the XML Editor.
After making all required updates, save and close the Global Profile.

Create and configure a folder-level profile

Perform the following steps to configure a folder-level profile:

Log into Adobe Experience Manager as an administrator.
Click on the Adobe Experience Manager link at the top and choose Tools.
Select Guides from the list of tools and click on the Folder Profiles tile.

For the first time, the Folder Profiles page is shown with the default Global Profile tile only.
Click Create.
Enter the following details in the Create Folder Profile dialog:
- Name of the folder profile.
- Path of the folder where the profile will be applicable.
  
  NOTE
  You cannot apply multiple folder profiles on a folder. Ensure that the folder you are selecting here does not have any other profile applied to it. In case of a parent-child folders having their own specific profiles, the child folder will use the configurations from its own profile. The configurations from the parent folder do not override the configurations of a child folder.
Click Create.

A new tile with the name of the folder profile is created in the Folder Profiles page
Click on the folder profile tile to edit.

A General tab with the folder profile’s name and configured folder information is shown.
Click Edit to add multiple folders and users who will have administrative access to modify the folder profile.

NOTE
Users that you add here will have the administrative rights to update the conditional attributes, template, and output presets configured for this folder profile.
To add a folder, click the Browse icon in the Folder Path and navigate to and select a folder, and click Add to add the folder to this profile.

NOTE
Ensure that the folder that you choose here does not have any other folder-level profile associated with it.
To add a user, select a user from the Admin Users drop-down and click Add.

NOTE
You can add multiple users to the folder profile from the drop-down list. You can also remove an existing admin user from the list by clicking the delete icon next to the user ID.
After adding all required folders and users to the folder profile, click Save.

Now you are ready to configure the conditional attributes, templates, output presets, and XML Editor.

IMPORTANT

When you create a folder profile, by default it does not contain any templates. You must add the required templates in the folder profile to make them available to your authors.

Configure conditional attributes for global or folder-level profiles

Perform the following steps to configure standard DITA-supported conditional attributes at global or folder-level:

Log into Adobe Experience Manager as an administrator or the user having administrative rights on a folder-level profile.
Click on the Adobe Experience Manager link at the top and choose Tools.
Select Guides from the list of tools and click on the Folder Profiles tile.
Click on the profile tile that you want to configure.

NOTE
You can choose to configure conditional attributes in the Global Profile or a folder-level profile.
On the profile page, click on the Conditional Attributes tab.
Click Edit.
Click Add.
Enter the Name, Value, and a Label for the conditional attribute.

You can save a profile with only the attribute name. However, an attribute can only be used when it has a value specified to it. If you specify both - value and label for an attribute, the Web Editor shows the label of the conditional attribute. Also, the label is shown to the publishing administrator at the time of creating a conditional preset.

The following screenshot shows the definition for the platform attribute with possible values and labels.
If you want to add more values for the same attribute, click the + icon and enter the additional value and label.
If you want to add more attributes, click Add.
Click Save.

If you are using custom attribute, then it must be a valid DITA attribute supported by the DTD. If you want to use any attribute, which is not a standard DITA attribute, then perform the following additional steps:

Add the custom attribute to the DTD file. For example, if your DTD file is commonElements.mod, then you need to locate this file in the DTD directory. The default path of the system DTD file is:

/libs/fmdita/dita_resources/DITA-1.3/dtd/base/dtd/commonElements.mod

IMPORTANT
The specialized DTD file should be a part of the custom code deployment. DTDs under /apps are part of the product deployment and hence it is overwritten with installation of any new release. It is recommended to add specialized DTD under /var/dxml/dita_resources within the project folder, and include the DTD/catalog path in the DITA profile.For more information, see Integrate DITA specialization.
Use the Package Manager to download /libs/fmdita/config/condAttrList.xml file:
Create a copy of the condAttrList.xml file at the following location in your Cloud Manager’s Git repository:

/apps/fmdfmdita/config/condAttrList.xml
Save the file.
Add custom attributes to the global or folder-level profile.

Configure templates

AEM Guides comes with 7 out-of-the-box topic templates, 2 DITA map templates, and 3 PDF templates. You can choose to have only a few templates available to your authors and publishers. In case you use a custom template, the same can be configured and made available for authoring and publishing. You use the Templates tab in the Folder Profiles configuration to add or remove topic, map, or PDF templates from global or folder-level profiles.

Even before configuring the topic, map, or PDF templates at global or folder-level, you can also define a location to store your custom templates. To configure a custom location to store the templates, see Configure custom DITA template folder path.

Perform the following steps to add the topic, map, or PDF templates into a folder profile:

Log into Adobe Experience Manager as an administrator or the user having administrative rights on a folder-level profile.
Click on the Adobe Experience Manager link at the top and choose Tools.
Select Guides from the list of tools and click on the Folder Profiles tile.
Click on the profile tile that you want to configure.

NOTE
You can choose to configure a template in the Global Profile or a folder-level profile.
On the profile page, click on the Templates tab.
Click Edit.

You get the options to add Topic, Map, and PDF templates by searching from the default location or browsing for it.

NOTE
By default, all templates are stored in the /content/dam/dita-templates folder. The dita-templates folder contains topics, maps, and PDF sub-folders to store the topic, map, and PDF templates. You can add your custom templates (.dita,.xml, or .ditamapfiles) in the default template folders. Once you add your template in the default folder, you will be able to add them in the global or folder profile. For more information about creating custom templates using the Web Editor, see Create custom authoring template.
Add the required topic, map, and PDF templates to your profile.

To add a template, do one of the following:
- Choose Search or Type and enter or select the name of a template from the drop-down list. The drop-down list consists of all default templates and any new template that you have created.
- Click Browse and select a template from DAM.
Click Add.

The selected templates are added to the template list.

NOTE
You can change the order of templates by dragging and dropping them at the desired position in the list. The position of templates controls the order in which they show in the Blueprint page in the topic or map creation workflow.
To set the translation rules, browse the SRX location to find the folder which contains the SRX files. The SRX (Segmentation Rules eXchange) format is a standard for exchanging segmentation rules between different users and different translation environments. You can create a folder and add your custom SRX files to it.

Once you’ve created the folder which contains the SRX files, you can add the folder path in the Translation SRX location configuration inside your folder profile.

AEM Guides picks the SRX rules according to the source language of the translation project. It looks for a custom SRX file for a language, and if you do not define a custom SRX file, then it picks the rules as per the out of the box translation rules.
Click Save.

In case you have configured the templates on a folder-level profile, the configured templates get associated with the configured folder. All projects created under the configured folder will have access to only those templates that are configured under the folder-level profile.

Create custom authoring template

AEM Guides provides an easy way of creating authoring templates. As a system administrator, you can use the Web Editor to create authoring templates from scratch. You can then add the new template in the global profile or assign it to a specific folder using the folder-specific profile.

Perform the following steps to create a custom authoring template:

Log into Adobe Experience Manager as an administrator.
In the Assets UI, navigate to the folder configured to store the template files. By default, all topic templates are stored in the /content/dam/dita-templates/topics folder.

NOTE
To configure a custom location to store topic or map templates, see Configure custom DITA template folder path
Click Create > DITA Template.
On the Blueprint page, select the type of the DITA topic template that you want to create.

NOTE
You can use the Blank template to start from scratch. The Blank template does not have any structure or elements in it.
Click Next.
On the new template Properties page, enter a Title, Name, and Description for the template.

NOTE
The name is automatically suggested based on the Title of your template. If you want to manually specify the name, then ensure that the Name does not contain any spaces, apostrophe, or braces and ends with .dita.
(Optional) Click the Add a Thumbnail button to browser for and select a thumbnail to associate with your template.
Click Create.

The Topic Created message appears.

You can choose to open the template for editing in the Web Editor, or save the template file in the template store location. Once the template is created, you can use the Web Editor to customize the template as per your authoring needs. Once a template is in place, ensure that you associate it either with a global or folder-level profile.

Configure output presets

In a typical enterprise setup, different output templates could be used for different products or user guides. Also, there could be some common output generation processes that should be used by all publishers and a set of specific output generation processes for a specific group of publishers or projects.

AEM Guides allows the administrator to create output presets with specific settings that can then be used by all or a specific set of publishers to generate output. For example, the administrator can create one output preset to generate a user guide that is common across all publishers. And, another one to create the programming user manuals that are specific to a set of publishers. Both of these presets can be configured to use different output templates. In this example, the common publishing preset for generating the user guide can be configured at the global level. And, the output preset for generating the programming user manual can be configured at a folder-level.

Once the default output presets have been created in the system, all DITA maps created after that will use the default presets to generate output. However, all existing DITA maps would continue to use the output presets that were earlier configured with them. If you want to apply the new output preset on all existing DITA maps, then you need to run the Apply preset changes workflow.

In addition to the presets configured at the global or enterprise level, a publisher would still have the rights to create more output presets. However, those presets are tied to the DITA map for which they are created. For more details about creating regular output presets for a DITA map, see Create, edit, duplicate, or remove an output preset in the Using Adobe Experience Manager Guides as a Cloud Service guide.

Perform the following steps to configure global or folder-specific output presets:

Log into Adobe Experience Manager as an administrator or the user having administrative rights on a folder-specific profile.
Click on the Adobe Experience Manager link at the top and choose Tools.
Select Guides from the list of tools and click on the Folder Profiles tile.
Click on the profile tile that you want to configure.

NOTE
You can choose to configure output presets in the Global Profile or a folder-specific profile.
On the profile page. click on the Output Presets tab.

A list of out-of-the-box output presets is displayed, which includes AEM Site, PDF, HTML5, EPUB, and CUSTOM.
Do one of the following to create or edit an output preset:
- Click Create to create a new output preset from scratch.
- Click Duplicate to create a copy of the selected output preset. You can make changes to the duplicate preset and save it.
- Click Edit to open the selected preset’s configuration for editing.
  
  For information about output preset settings, see Understanding the output presets in the Using Adobe Experience Manager Guides as a Cloud Service guide.
Click Save to save the preset settings.

All DITA maps created or uploaded after this will have the new or updated output preset.

Apply preset changes

A new output preset created at the global level is made available to all new DITA maps that you create going forward. Similarly, if a new output preset is created at a folder-level, then that preset is made available to all maps that will be created in the configured folder. By default, a new output preset is not made available to any existing DITA map.

If you have updated an existing output preset, or you want to make a new output preset available to existing DITA maps, then perform the following steps:

Log into Adobe Experience Manager as an administrator or the user having administrative rights on a folder-specific profile.
Click on the Adobe Experience Manager link at the top and choose Tools.
Select Guides from the list of tools and click on the Folder Profiles tile.
Click on the profile tile that you want to configure.

NOTE
You can choose to configure output presets in the Global Profile or a folder-specific profile.
On the profile page. click on the Output Presets tab.

A list of out-of-the-box output presets is displayed, which includes AEM Site, PDF, HTML5, EPUB, and CUSTOM.
Select the output preset that you want to apply to existing DITA maps.
Click Apply Preset Changes in the main toolbar.
In the Apply Preset Changes dialog, you can choose from:
- Selecting Overwrite Existing Preset option: If you select this option, then any updates that you made in the existing output presets will overwrite settings in all existing DITA maps where that preset is used. However, doing so will result in the loss of any existing conditional preset and baseline information associated with the map.
- Not selecting Overwrite Existing Preset option: If you do not select this option, then any updates that you made in the existing output presets will not impact the existing DITA maps. Only the newly added presets are added to the existing DITA maps. Note that the newly created DITA map gets both—the updated output presets and the newly added presets.
Click OK to apply changes from the selected output presets on all existing DITA maps.

Configure AI Assistant for smart help and authoring

For Experience Manager Guides as a Cloud Service .

The AI Assistant in Adobe Experience Manager Guides is a powerful, AI-driven tool designed to enhance your content through smart authoring and content reuse experiences. It brings together two robust AI features — Authoring and Help — into the Experience Manager Guides interface, enabling you to author documents and access information faster and more efficiently.

For configuration details, view AI Assistant configuration.

Configure AI-powered smart suggestions

You can configure the AI-powered smart suggestions and help the authors reuse the existing content and easily create correct and consistent content references. The AI Configuration tab allows you to control the settings of Suggest reusable content from the AI Assistant panel in the Web Editor.

Perform the following steps to configure standard AI configuration at the global or folder-level profile:

Log into Adobe Experience Manager as an administrator or user with administrative rights on a folder-level profile.
Select the Adobe Experience Manager link at the top and choose Tools.
Select Guides from the list of tools and select the Folder Profiles tile.
Select the profile tile that you want to configure.

NOTE
You can configure AI-based smart suggestions to the global or a folder-level profile.
On the profile page, select the AI Configuration tab.
Select Edit.
As an administrator, you can configure the following settings:

Minimum characters: Enter the minimum number of characters that the authors need to type in to get the suggestions. For example, if this number is 7, the author must add at least 7 characters to view a smart suggestion.

Maximum suggestions: Enter the maximum number of suggestions the authors can get while authoring the content. For example, if this number is 5, the author can view five or fewer smart suggestions.

Files and folders: Select the files or folders from which the smart suggestions should be shown. For consistency of content, it’s recommended that no two entries in the list have common files between them. Once you select the files and folders, they are listed.
Click Save.

NOTE
The last indexed status details are displayed on the top after you save the file.

Learn more about how to view and add AI-based smart suggestions to add content references while authoring in the Web Editor.

Customize the default questions for smart help

For Experience Manager Guides as a Cloud Service.

You can configure the AI-powered smart Help to help the authors ask questions and easily find the required content from the Experience Manager Guides documentation.

The XML Editor Configuration tab allows you to configure the default questions of the Help panel.

NOTE

You can configure up to 10 default questions.

Perform the following steps to configure the default questions:

Log into Adobe Experience Manager as an administrator or user with administrative rights on a folder-level profile.
Select the Adobe Experience Manager link at the top and choose Tools.
Select Guides from the list of tools and select the Folder Profiles tile.
Select the profile tile that you want to configure.

NOTE
You can configure default questions for the Smart Help panel to the global or a folder-level profile.
Select the XML Editor Configuration tab.
Click the Edit icon on the top.
In the XML Editor UI configuration section, select the Download icon to download the ui_config.json file on your local system.

In the ui_config.json file, add the sample questions.

Example of sample questions:

"assistantSampleQuestions": [
"How to create a new topic",
"How to create a new map",
"What is a baseline" ]

Save the file and upload it.

NOTE
The default questions appear in the Smart Help panel after you save the file.

Learn more about using the AI-powered Smart Help to find the required content from the Experience Manager Guides documentation.

Configure and customize the XML Editor

By default, the XML Editor comes with a lot of features to help your authors create DITA documents. If you work in a restrictive environment, you can choose which features are exposed to your authors. The XML Editor Configuration tab allows you to easily control the features and also change the look-and-feel of your Editor. As an administrator, you can customize the following components of the Editor:

XML Editor UI Configuration

This setting enables you to create JSON extensions that reflect modifications made in the ui_config.json file. You can independently upload these extensions at the Folder profile level, offering enhanced flexibility and customization. For instance, when you make changes to the XML Editor Configuration, such as updating a button, the system automatically identifies the differences. By uploading these changes to the XML Editor UI Configuration and converting them into JSON extensions using the Convert UI Config to JSON button, the system generates an extension that incorporates the new functionality.

Learn more about customizing JSON configurations and converting UI configurations for the new AEM Guides Editor.

NOTE

When customizing the app using the extension framework, it is recommended to use only the supported essential React Spectrum components such as Tree, Table, Checkbox, radio button and radio group, etc., to avoid any issues during the deployment.

XML Editor page layout

This feature allows you to upload CSS files to style the new extensions uploaded under the XML Editor UI Configuration. The uploaded CSS is applied consistently across all relevant applications, ensuring a unified and polished appearance for your UI customizations.

XML Editor Configuration

This setting controls the toolbar and the other user interface elements of the Editor. Select the Download icon to download the ui\_config.json file on your local system. You can then make changes to the file and the upload the same. Depending upon where you are uploading the file at, global or folder-level profile, the changes are applied accordingly. For more details about how to customize the XML Editor using the ui\_config.json file, view Customize toolbar.

NOTE

For AEM Guides 2502 release, and newer versions, it is recommended to use extension JSON instead of ui_config.json for customization. For details, refer to the XML Editor UI Configuration section above.

CSS Template Layout

Download the file available in this section to customize the look-and-feel of your document when it is previewed or opened for editing in the Web Editor. The default CSS file available for download is only a test file, which should not be used for customization. You can create a CSS file with customizations for the Web Editor and upload the same. For example, you can create a .css file with the following code:

.title {    font-size: 9em;}

Save this file and upload it in the CSS Template Layout section. The next time you download the file, you will get the latest CSS file being used in the Web Editor.

XML Editor Snippets

Using the configuration file in this section, you can create some default snippets and share them with your authors. The default structure of the file is given below:

{
   "snippetID": {
      "name": "snippet Name",
      "description": "snippet Description",
      "value": "<i>this is snippet value</i>"
  }
}

The following details are required to create a snippet:

snippetID - A unique ID for the snippet. It can take an alphanumeric value.

name - A descriptive name to identify the snippet. This name shows up in the Snippets panel.

description - Add a descriptive information for the snippet.

value - Provide the XML code of the snippet.

NOTE

You can add more snippets by adding a comma (,) at the end of your snippet definition and repeating the same structure for the next snippet.

XML Content Version Labels

By default, authors are allowed to create labels of their choice and associate them with their topic files. However, this can lead to many variations of a same label, for example one could have “Release 1.0”, “Release-1.0”, “release 1” labels for identifying the same stage of a topic. To avoid such inconsistent labeling in the system, you can create a predefined list of labels that authors would then be allowed to choose from. Having consistent labeling helps in better management of files in your system.

Using the version label configuration, you can upload a list of valid labels for your organization. Download the default label.json file and modify it as shown below:

{
"label1":"Draft",
"label2":"PM-Review",
"label3":"Engg-Review",
"label4":"QE-Review",
"label5":"Ready for Loc",
"label6":"Ready for Publish"
}

In the above example, the “label1” is the identifier for the label sequence and it is appended by the label that is displayed to the authors wherever a label is required. Save this file and upload it in the XML Content Version Labels section.

IMPORTANT

For folder-level configurations to take effect, users would need to select the profile under their User Preferences in the Web Editor.

Rootmap

If your authors work with a specific root map, then you can browse to and select that rootmap here. Note that you can define the rootmap only for a folder-level profile.

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