Library pages are where users can consume assets and collections of assets. If made publicly available, these can also be accessed by external viewers. The assets and collections can be viewed, downloaded, and shared. Search and filter settings can be set up to help users quickly find the assets they need.

Each library page is linked with a library backend. One library backend can be connected with multiple library pages, whereas a library page can only be connected with one library backend.

How can I create a library page / add a library page to my guideline?

A guideline editor can create new or add existing libraries to the guideline using the navigation manager.

To learn more about how the library pages and backend libraries are connected and how to navigate between them, check out our article on Getting started with Libraries: backend and frontend.

To ensure that Frontify really becomes your brand’s cozy home, guideline editors can customize the Libraries to their needs. Read along to find out how.

Enter the frontend view of your Library, and switch to edit mode. A “Search Settings” button and a "Layout Settings" button will then appear on your page. Click it to enter the settings section.

In the “General” tab, you’re able to change the library width and view mode. Under “Assets” you can define the spacing between assets, the max height as well as the asset preview type. The “Collections” tab offers a plethora of layout settings to control navigation between collections and their preview style.

The search bar and filters can be configured by adjusting general properties like border width and button color. You can also dive into details, changing the looks of your search bar borders and the box shadow. You can further define which assets you’d like to display. This way, you can, for example, easily exclude expired assets from your Media Library.

You can also modify your facets if you wish. Change their width, and define which color the facet checkboxes should have. It’s not indispensable, but why not customize your Media Library from A to Z, right?

You can decide how and when cross-library search appears on your Library pages, helping users discover assets across multiple libraries in a seamless way.

Cross-library search is helpful when your content is distributed across several libraries. Instead of requiring users to know which library to search in, this feature lets them search once and explore results from other libraries, improving discoverability and reducing duplicate work.

In the settings, you can:

You’ll find the cross-library search settings on a Library page under: Themes → Layout and Navigation → Search bar → Cross-library search

Only Library Editors and Library Admins with edit access to the Library page can customize these settings.

Note: This setting is only available for Library pages using Themes. It does not apply to Legacy.

You can choose to show asset descriptions directly when hovering over an asset in the grid view on your Library pages.

Why use this setting? Seeing descriptions on hover helps users find the right asset faster, without needing to open the sidebar or click into the detail view. It’s especially helpful in libraries where visual previews aren’t always enough to distinguish between files.

In the Theme settings, you can enable or disable Show asset description on hover for a given Library page. Once enabled, users will see the asset’s description appear on hover in grid view.

You’ll find this setting on a Library page under: Themes → Layout and Navigation → Assets

Only Library Editors and Library Admins with edit access to the Library page can customize these settings.

Note: This setting is only available for Library pages using Themes. It does not apply to Legacy.

For larger libraries, using the search and filter capabilities becomes essential. These help the library page consumer ot find the right asset as quickly as possible. Read more about our Search in Libraries, as well as our Faceted Search.

When first opening a Library Page, the viewer sees an asset listing in a grid or justified layout. Each asset has a preview tile with a selection box that appears on hover. To view an asset in more detail, click on the asset tile to enter its Detail Asset View.

Using bulk selection on the library page or within a collection, a consumer can choose to download one or more assets at a time. The same settings apply as with individual asset downloads, namely download protection, license, copyright agreement, and watermarks.

Note: The download size is limited to 4096x4096 px for image processing.

Consumer users can also share assets by selecting them and clicking the bulk “share” button. The share link and settings remain accessible to the user in the personal collection created with this action.

If external sharing has been deactivated by the backend library curator, then this action will not be available on the library page. More information can be found in our Sharing Capabilities article.

Personal collections allow consumers to organize their preferred assets for easy access. The consumer can share, download, and manage personal collections on the respective Library page.

Some settings in the backend library will affect which assets are available on the library page, user-specific asset visibility, and whether or not the assets can be shared and downloaded.

Document categories: the first page of a document library page displays just a handful of assets from each category. Only after carrying out a search or clicking on “see more” of a specific category will the consumer be able to see all assets of that category.