Developers / Next.js / Template Content

Template Content

On this page, you'll learn how to template content from the Prismic API in your Next.js application.

Before you proceed

This article assumes that you have queried your API and saved the document object in a variable, as described in Fetch Data.

Intro to templating

Content from Prismic comes in different types. Some are simple fields, like numbers or booleans. Others are structured fields, like titles, rich text, and links.

Simple field types can be used directly in your application:

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<span>{document.data.example_number}</span> 
// <span>42</span>

The @prismicio/react package includes components for rendering structured fields. To render rich text, for instance, you can use <PrismicRichText>:

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<PrismicRichText field={document.data.example_title} />
// <h2>Hello World!</h2>

To get started, let's look at the structure of the API response.

The structure of the API response

Prismic's development kits offer three types of API request functions:

Get-single requests, such as getFirst() and getByUID(), which return a single document object.

Get-all requests, such as dangerouslyGetAll() and getAllByType(), which return a results array made up of document objects.

Paginated requests, such as get() and getByType(), which return a results array plus pagination information.

By default, a paginated request will return 20 documents, but you can adjust the page size with the pageSize API option to return up to 100 documents. Get-all requests will run recursively to fetch all matching documents.

In Next.js, you might use that data like this:

  • Paginated
  • Get-all
  • Get-single
Paginated
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<h3>{response.results[0].data.example_key_text}</h3>
// <h3>Example Key Text Value</h3>
Get-all
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<h3>{results[0].data.example_key_text}</h3>
// <h3>Example Key Text Value</h3>
Get-single
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<h3>{document.data.example_key_text}</h3>
// <h3>Example Key Text Value</h3>

Slices

Slices are repeatable, rearrangeable content sections. The best practice for working with Slices is creating reusable components and passing down the data as props.

On the document object, Slices are stored in the slices or body array, like so:

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"slices": [
  {
    "slice_label": null,
    "items": [
      {...}
    ],
    "primary": {
      "example_key_text": "Some text..."
    }
  },
  {
    "slice_type": "image_gallery",
    "slice_label": null,
    "items": [
      {...}
    ],
    "primary": {
      "example_key_text": "Some more text..."
    }
  }
]

Other names for the Slice Zone property

Most documents have one Slice Zone stored in the slices property. However, you can change the name of this property in your page type.

To render Slices, use the <SliceZone> component from @prismicio/react by passing an array of Slices from the API and a list of React components for each type of Slice. In the following example, the components are imported from a library of Slices exported from the slices/index.js file.

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import { SliceZone } from '@prismicio/react'
import { components } from '../slices'

const Page = ({ page }) => {
  return (
    <SliceZone slices={page.data.slices} components={components} />
  );
};

Each Slice component will receive the following props that can be used to display the Slice’s content.

  • slice: The Slice object being rendered.
  • index: The index of the Slice within the Slice Zone.
  • slices: The list of all Slice objects in the Slice Zone.
  • context: Arbitrary data passed to the <SliceZone>'s context prop.

A simple Slice component could look like this:

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function TextSlice({ slice }) {
  return (
    <section>
      <PrismicRichText field={slice.primary.text} />
    </section>
  )
}

Simple fields

The content for each Prismic field can be a simple primitive value or an object. The simple fields can be injected directly into your app since their value is either a string, a number, or a boolean. Here are the simple fields:

  • Color
  • Key text
  • Number
  • Select
  • Boolean
  • Date
  • Timestamp

Here's an example of how to use the number field. You can template the other simple fields similarly.

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<span>{document.data.example_number}</span>
// <span>42</span>

Retrieving the color field is similar. Here we can see how to do inline styling in React:

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<h3 style={{ color: document.data.example_color }}>
  My favorite color is Purple
</h3>

// <h3 style="color: #A020F0;">
//   My favorite color is Purple
// </h3>

Date and timestamp

The date and timestamp fields from Prismic are strings. The raw response for each of these fields has the following formats:

  • Date: YYYY-MM-DD
  • Timestamp: YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS+0000

A package named @prismicio/client provides a function to convert a date or timestamp field from Prismic into a JavaScript date object.

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npm install @prismicio/client

With the client package installed, you can handle date and timestamp fields like in the following example:

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import * as prismic from '@prismicio/client'

<p>{prismic.asDate(document.data.example_date).getFullYear()}</p>
// <p>2021</p>

<time
  datetime={prismic
  .asDate(document.data.example_timestamp)
  .toISOString()}
>
  {prismic.asDate(document.data.example_timestamp).toLocaleString()}
</time>
// <time datetime="2018-01-16T13:46:15.000Z">
//   01/16/2018, 1:46:15 PM
// </p>

Geopoint

The geopoint field is served as an object with two properties: latitude and longitude.

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"example_geopoint": {
  "latitude": 48.85392410000001,
  "longitude": 2.2913515000000073,
}

Here is an example of how to retrieve the latitude and longitude coordinates for a geopoint field.

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<p>
  {
    'My location is ' +
    document.data.example_geopoint.latitude.toFixed(2) +
    ', ' +
    document.data.example_geopoint.longitude.toFixed(2)
  }
</p>


// <p>My location is: 48.85, 2.29</p>

Embed

Here's an API response of the embed field:

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"example_embed": {
  "version": "1.0",
  "url": "https://prismic.io",
  "type": "link",
  "title": "Make your website editable for the whole team - Prismic",
  "provider_name": null,
  "thumbnail_url": "https://images.prismic.io/prismic-website/6e49007fec52f99861047cdd55b3ab190ea04295_dev-landing-page-image.png?auto=compress,format",
  "html": "<div data-type='unknown'><a href='https://prismic.io'><h1>Make your website editable for the whole team - Prismic</h1></div>",
  "embed_url": "https://prismic.io/"
}

You can display an embed field using the html property on the response. To render HTML, use React's dangerouslySetInnerHTML prop. Learn more about dangerouslySetInnerHTML() in the React documentation.

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<div
  dangerouslySetInnerHTML={{
    __html: document.data.example_embed.html,
  }}
/>

The <iframe> may have a default height and width defined by the oEmbed provider. You can style the iframe's height and width in your global CSS:

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iframe {
  width: 100%;
  height: auto;
}

Images

The image field returns an object with data about the image, including a URL for your image (hosted on Prismic's servers) and alt text.

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"example_image": {
  "dimensions": {
    "width": 1920,
    "height": 1302
  },
  "alt": "Pink flowers on a tree",
  "copyright": null,
  "url": "https://images.prismic.io/sm-20201204-2/7d1fba99-5bec-4d59-b8eb-402706e2d36c_a-pril-62u95KgB49w-unsplash.jpg?auto=compress,format"
}

You can template an image using @prismicio/next's <PrismicNextImage> component. It renders an optimized image using next/image and Prismic’s built-in imgix Image CDN integration.

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import { PrismicNextImage } from '@prismicio/next'

<PrismicNextImage field={doc.data.example_image} />

The component uses the field’s URL, dimensions, and alt text to generate its output.

Images can be transformed using Prismic’s built-in imgix integration and the imgixParams prop. This allows you to resize, crop, recolor, and more. See imgix’s URL API Reference for a full list of available information.

The following example converts the image to grayscale with sat: -100:

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import { PrismicNextImage } from '@prismicio/next'

<PrismicNextImage field={doc.data.example_image} imgixParams={{ sat: -100 }} />

Alternatively, images can be templated using one of the following components or helpers. <PrismicNextImage> is recommended for most cases, however.

Rich text and titles

Rich text and titles are delivered in an array that contains information about the text structure. Here's an example of the API response of the rich text field (title fields follow the same format).

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"example_rich_text": [
  {
    "type": "paragraph",
    "text": "Example Rich Text Value",
    "spans": [
      {
        "start": 8,
        "end": 17,
        "type ": "strong"
      }
    ]
  }
]

Output as React components

To render rich text and title fields as React components, use the <PrismicRichText> component from @prismicio/react.

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import { PrismicRichText } from '@prismicio/react'

<PrismicRichText field={document.data.example_rich_text} />

Using custom React components

To modify the output of a rich text field, provide a list of component overrides to the components prop. The list of components maps an element type to its React component. Here is an example using custom components for first-level headings and paragraphs.

<PrismicRichText
  field={document.data.example_rich_text}
  components={{
    heading1: ({ children }) => <Heading>{children}</Heading>,
    paragraph: ({ children }) => <p className="paragraph">{children}</p>,
  }}
/>

Learn more about customizing rich text output in HTML Serializing.

Output as plain text

The <PrismicText> component from @prismicio/react will convert and output the text in the rich text or title field as a string.

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import { PrismicText } from '@prismicio/react'

<PrismicText field={document.data.example_rich_text} />

Link

The link field renders an internal or external link.

Links vs content relationships

Although these two fields are similar, it is important to note the difference to know how to differentiate them and know in which case to use each one.

The link field allows you to link to an external webpage, an internal Prismic document, or an item in your Media Library (like a PDF). The link field is used to create a link (i.e. an a element).

The link field cannot be constrained by type, so you do not know the structure of the document you are linking to. For that reason, you should avoid fetching linked content with the link field. Instead, use the content relationship field.

The content relationship field allows you to link specifically to an internal Prismic document constrained by type. Content relationship fields are used to pull data from another document.

Here's what the content of a link field looks like from the API, depending on the type of content you add. This field has an API ID example_link, the first one links to another document with the UID another-document and the type page, the second one has a web URL, and the third one links to a media item:

  • Link to another document
  • Link to web
  • Link to media item
Link to another document
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"example_link": {
  "id": "X9C65hEAAEFIAuLo",
  "type": "page",
  "tags": [],
  "slug": "another-document",
  "lang": "en-us",
  "uid": "another-document",
  "link_type": "Document",
  "isBroken": false
}
Link to web
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"example_link": {
  "link_type": "Web",
  "url": "https://prismic.io"
}
Link to media item
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"example_link": {
  "link_type": "Media",
  "name": "cool_pic.png",
  "kind": "image",
  "url": "https://images.prismic.io/slicemachine-blank/30d6602b-c832-4379-90ef-   100d32c5e4c6_cool_pic.png?auto=compress,format",
  "size": "181944",
  "height": "1536",
  "width": "2048"
},

You can template a link using @prismicio/next's <PrismicNextLink> component. It renders a link using next/link and automatically resolves internal and external links.

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import { PrismicNextLink } from '@prismicio/next'

<PrismicNextLink field={document.data.example_link}>Example Link</PrismicNextLink>

Content relationship

To pull in content from another document, you must fetch that content in your API query using the graphQuery or fetchLinks option.

  • First, reference the API ID of the type in your content relationship field.
  • Then, the API ID of the field that you want to retrieve.

If you have a page type called blog that includes a content relationship field called example_content_relationship linked to a custom type called author where you want to retrieve a field that has an API ID of author_name, you query it like so:

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export const getStaticProps = async ({ previewData }) => {
  const client = createClient({ previewData })

  const document = await client.getByUID('blog', 'my-blog-post', {
    fetchLinks: 'author.author_name',
  })

  return {
    props: { document },
  }
}

Once you have adjusted your API query, the linked content will appear in a data object nested in the link or content relationship field:

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"example_content_relationship": {
  "id": "X9C65hEAAEFIAuLo",
  "type": "blog",
  "tags": [],
  "slug": "another-page-title",
  "lang": "en-us",
  "uid": "my-blog",
  "data": {
    "author_name": "Jane Doe"
  },
  "link_type": "Document",
  "isBroken": false
}

You can then render that content:

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<p>
  Written by {document.data.example_content_relationship.data.author_name}
</p>
// <strong>Written by Jane Doe</strong>

Group

Slices vs groups

Slices and groups both allow you to create repeatable content templates. Groups are available in the static section of your document, and Slices are available in the Slice Zone. The difference between groups and Slices is that groups allow you to repeat a collection of fields, while Slices let you repeat and mix different collections of fields.

A group field renders an array of content fields. Here's what the API response looks like for a hypothetical group field modeling a nav menu.

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example_group: [
  {
    example_nav_label: 'Homepage',
    example_nav_link: {...},
  },
  {
    example_nav_label: 'About',
    example_nav_link: {...},
  },
]

To template a group field use a .map() function to loop over the results. Here's a usage example:

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<ul>
  {document.data.example_group.map((item) => (
    <li key={item.example_key_text}>
      {item.example_key_text}
    </li>
  ))}
</ul>

// <ul>
//   <li>This is some text in a group.</li>
//   <li>And here we have more text.</li>
//   <li>Finally another piece of text.</li>
// </ul>

In React, a key prop should be given to the outer-most component in the .map() function. Give it a value that will be unique among the group field's items.

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