Unlike SharePoint 2007, in order to surface the Publishing functionality in Share Point 2010, you will first need to activate some site collection features before you'll be able to create a site. Why use publishing sites? Among other reasons, per MSDN, "publishing sites use Publishing Features to provide capabilities to create engaging Web Content Management (WCM) sites." In this walkthrough, I will demonstrate how to create Publishing Sites using Bamboo's Site Creation Plus Web Part.
Step 1: Go to the Tool pane and select Publishing Site as your Site Template:
After clicking the Apply and OK buttons, you will see a message in red. This message tells us that we must activate certain Features before creating a site:
Step 2: Go to Site Actions > Site Settings > Site Collection Features:
Step 3: Click Active for the SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure:
Step 4: Go back to the Site Creation Plus Web Part to create a Publishing site:
Notes:
Normally, you cannot see the Publishing tab when creating a new site. So, I will demonstrate how to show the Publishing tab in site templates.
Step 1: Go to Site Actions -> Site Settings -> Site Collection Features:
Step 2: Click Active for the SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure:
Step 3: Go back to create a new site, you will see the Publishing tab as follows:
Step 4: Click the Create button to create a Publishing site:
