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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-06-15T09:25:56+00:00

I’m trying to add a layout to the application layout. I having trouble trying

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I’m trying to add a layout to the application layout. I having trouble trying to figure out all the different layout solutions. First I tried just a layout inside a layout because I didn’t fully grasp what partials are or if they are layouts also? Maybe I can start with that question. What is the difference between a layout and a partial.

Here is what I have right now. I’m trying to just separate out my header code which has a navigation and some other elements into a separate layout. I want this layout to be on all views. Meaning it should be a layout inside the applications layout along with other views that are been called when their controllers are called. Which is covered in my code with the <%= yield %>. That yeild works but the :header one does not.

Application Layout app/views/layouts/application.html.erb

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
  <title>home</title>
  <%= stylesheet_link_tag    "application", :media => "all" %>
  <%= javascript_include_tag "application" %>
  <%= csrf_meta_tags %>
</head>
<body>
    <div id="header"><%= yield(:header) %></div> 
    <%= yield %>
</body>
</html>

Header layout app/views/layouts/application.html.erb

<% content_for :header %>
    <p>HEADER TEXT</p>
<% end %>

Why would the code above not work?

I also saw code like this that I tried but it gave me an error.

<%= render layouts/header %>

Can someone please explain all these different methods.
Thanks.

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    It’s good practice to separate your header and footer into partials which you would live in the views/layouts folder as ‘_header.html.erb’ and ‘_footer.html.erb’ respectively.

    You can then optionally wrap each partial with specific div’s which is what you’re trying to do with the header (you could do the same with the body too), and it would end up looking like this:

    <!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
  <title>home</title>
  <%= stylesheet_link_tag    "application", :media => "all" %>
  <%= javascript_include_tag "application" %>
  <%= csrf_meta_tags %>
</head>
<body>

    <div id="header">
      <%= render 'layouts/header' %>
    </div> 
    <%= yield %>

    <div id="footer">
     <%= render 'layouts/footer' %>
    </div>
</body>
</html>

    That will do what you want it to do.

    Note that ‘layouts/header’ and ‘layouts/footer’ have ” around them.

    To answer your question on what is the difference between a layout and a partial, well a layout is something that will used throughout your application, such as a consistent header or footer. A partial can be a layout, but it doesn’t have to be, so you can partial specific to other views across your site.

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