If we regard content as being the text, images etc. we wish to display on the generated web pages, and the structure as being the underlying HTML or Javascript statements which will determine how the content actually looks, then generally speaking, the content of a page group should be contained in its elements. This is where the different texts, file names for images etc., are stored which will eventually appear in the generated files. The pages, on the other hand, and the number of different pages defined for a page group, will determine the page group's structure. This is where the templates are stored.

However, a web page always consists of a mixture of content and structure, and there is no absolute definition of either concept which will apply equally to all situations or meet with everyone's agreement.

A web address (URL), for instance, is definitely content, as is an image, but when the two are connected by the HTML statements <A HREF='URL'><IMG SRC='image file name'></A> (structure), a new sort of content is created, i.e. an image with a hyperlink. This (i.e. the specific combination of content and structure resulting in the required image with hyperlink) could be a typical element in this system.

An element can contain pure content and be structured according to the default template for the page or an automatically generated template based on its content. However, it can also have its own individual template and extra data determining how it will appear on the web page. A page template, on the other hand, can also contain text, images and hyperlinks. It is therefore up to the user to decide what should be stored at which level.

As elements can be copied or moved within a page group or among different page groups, an element should contain whatever structure is directly related to the element's content, and which you would normally want to copy or move along with that content (as in the above example).

Note that when using extra pages, an element can appear in more than one output file. By using different default element templates in the different pages, the same content can be presented differently in different places.