Layout templates define the areas where a user can place the portlets in a page. By default, Liferay comes with several different templates that are shown in the following picture:

Users of private pages or administrators of communities or public websites can choose the layout to use for each portlet page.

While the default layout options are suitable for most situations there can be situations when you need a very specific portlet window organization, such as website frontpages. To achieve maximum flexibility Liferay allows portal administrators to deploy extra layouts developed either by themselves or by third parties. Developing a layout is easy and can be done in a short amount of time.