Creating List Templates
SharePoint comes with predefined list templates for common types of lists, such as Announcements, Contacts, and Document Libraries. List templates define the fields, views, and (optionally) data included in new lists created from the template.
Creating a custom list template is very similar to creating a custom site template:
Create a list that you want to base your template on.
With the list displayed in the browser, choose Modify settings and columns → Save list as template. SharePoint displays the Save as Template page.
Enter a file name for the template, title, description, and choose OK to create the template. SharePoint displays a success page with a link to the list template gallery, as shown in Figure 3-9.

Figure 3-9. Viewing list templates in the gallery
The list template gallery is similar to the site template gallery shown earlier in Figure 3-4. You can click on a template name to download the file (.stp), rename the file with the .cab extension, and view the contents by opening it with WinZip or Extract. List template files contain an XML description of the template (manifest.xml) as summarized here:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <ListTemplate WebUrl="http://wombat1"> <Details> <TemplateDescription>Demo list template.</TemplateDescription> <TemplateTitle>NewListTemplat</TemplateTitle> <Language>1033</Language> <TemplateID>1</TemplateID> <Configuration>0</Configuration> ...