Overview of Layouts

Layouts are used to control the position of the components in your portal. Each of the components is held in place by a Placeholder. You can customize the way your portal looks by changing the way the pages appear in a book, and changing the way the portlets look on a page. You have two ways you can modify layouts:

Position the Pages in Your Book
Position the Portlets on a Page

A layout does not contain any business logic, nor does it act as a navigational structure. It is simply an organizational construct that is used to support the pages in a portal.