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Creating a Pageworks Layout by Hand (in the Business Central Client)

This guide is for a user or consultant who wants to add a Pageworks layout to a report directly in the Business Central web client — without writing an extension.

Pageworks recognizes a report layout by its MIME type, reportlayout/pageworks. When you add a layout manually, Business Central derives the MIME type from the file extension, so naming the file correctly is all it takes — no code and no event subscribers required.

Steps​

  1. Author your layout as a Pageworks HTML template and save it with a single .pageworks extension — for example MyInvoice.pageworks.

    warning

    Do not use a double extension such as MyInvoice.pageworks.html. Business Central would read the last extension (.html) and stamp the layout as reportlayout/html, and Pageworks would not pick it up.

  2. In Business Central, use Tell Me to open Report Layouts and choose New.

  3. Set Format Options to External.

    tip

    This is the key step. The Word, Excel, and RDLC formats stamp their own MIME types and will never be treated as Pageworks. Only the External (custom) format derives the MIME type from your file's extension.

  4. Upload your .pageworks file and finish.

The layout is now stamped reportlayout/pageworks, and Pageworks renders it in-tenant.

Customizing an existing Pageworks layout​

The same naming applies if you copy an existing Pageworks layout to customize it: Business Central exports the copy as a *.pageworks file, so the copy → edit → re-upload round-trip keeps the correct MIME type automatically.

Notes​

  • Detection is case-insensitive, so .Pageworks also resolves correctly — but use lowercase .pageworks for consistency.
  • Layouts provided by an extension declare MimeType = 'reportlayout/pageworks' explicitly in AL, so their on-disk file extension does not matter. The extension-based rule above only applies to layouts you upload by hand.