How Templates and Collections Work
On this page
Overview
A template defines the card. A collection tracks it.
Template Builder manages reusable card lists. Collections manage your personal tracking for those cards.
Template Builder manages the card list
A template describes the cards in a set: their images, titles, identifying details, and where they belong in the card list.
It is where a card list can be created, corrected, revised, and exported.
Collections manage your tracking
A collection uses that card list for your own collecting progress. This is where you set each card’s status and wishlist priority, then add personal notes for anything else you want to keep with the card.
Why they are separate
Template Builder exists so one well-made card list can be created, corrected, revised, exported, and used by many different collectors in their own separate collections.
Each person can use the same card list while keeping their own progress, priorities, and notes in their collection.
That is why changing a card image or adding a card happens in Template Builder: those changes affect the reusable card list. Tracking a card happens in the collection: that information belongs to your collection.
Updating from Template Builder
When you finish creating or revising a template in Template Builder, choose Update Collection to apply its card list to a collection.
If the template’s group and collection details match an existing collection, 5585 suggests that collection as the update target. You then confirm where the template should be applied.
This is the direct path used by the Update Rei (IVE) button in Starting Your First Collection.
Importing from Collection Tools
From a collection, choose Import Template in Collection Tools.
It opens two main paths:
- Edit Linked Template opens the template already connected to this collection in Template Builder.
- Import Template Zip or Import Template Folder brings an external template package into this collection.
Your tracking stays with your collection
When a revised template updates a collection, 5585 keeps matching cards connected so your personal tracking can stay with them.
That lets the card list improve without making you rebuild your own collection record each time.
Continue to Template Builder to learn how to create, organize, and revise a card list.