In this article, I will be fixing this issue

Adding Data View is grayed out in SharePoint Designer 2013.

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Scenario

In SharePoint Designer 2013, I tried to add DataView in a web part page but unfortunately,  the Data View is grayed out as shown below:

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Cause

In SharePoint Designer 2013, Adding DataView may be grayed out  in case of:

• The current site Master Page is Oslo Master Page.
• The page is not checked out and edited in Advanced Mode.
• The HTML is not parsed properly.
• The Data View is not added in an inappropriate tag/place.

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Solution

The current site Master Page is Oslo Master Page.  

It looks like a bug in SharePoint designer 2013 where you can’t add DataView to a page in a site has Oslo Master Page.

To overcome this issue,

• You should temporarily change the master page from Oslo to Seattle.
• Add your DataView in your page in SharePoint Designer.
• Go back to change the Master Page again from Seattle to Oslo.

To change the Master Page on the Team site from Oslo to Seattle.

To change the Master Page on the Publishing site from Oslo to Seattle.

After changing the Master Page from Oslo to Seattle, you can now add DataView in your page without any issue as shown below.

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The page is not checked out and edited in advanced mode.

In case you didn’t check out and the page is not edited in Advanced Mode,

• You will note that the Data View is enabled but You are not able to add it to list or other data source,
• The only available data view is the Empty Data View.

So to make the page is ready for Edit, you should do the following:

• Right Click on the page > Check out the page.
• Again, Right Click on the page  > Edit File in Advanced Mode.

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The HTML is not parsed properly.

The best place to add the Data View Web Part on your page is inside WebPartPages:WebPartZone before </ZoneTemplate>.

So you should add your cursor before </ZoneTemplate>Then from the above ribbon click on Data View button.

Note: if you have clicked enter or space on the keyboard. In this case, the HTML will not be parsed properly and you should click on HTML Parse button in the Edit Tab from the above ribbon to can add the Data View.

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The Data View is not added to an inappropriate tag/place

As we have mentioned in the above point The best place to add the Data View web part on your page inside WebPartPages:WebPartZone before </ZoneTemplate> but there are specific tags/place that does not accept to add Data view to it like PlaceHolderPageTitle

So make sure that you have added the data view in the correct place.

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Applies To

• SharePoint 2013
• SharePoint 2016

Conclusion

In this article, I have explored the common reasons for raising “Add DataView is grayed out in SharePoint Designer 2013 ” issue and How to solve it.

See Also

Check my answer at SharePoint Stack Exchange insert data view is gray out in SharePoint designer 2013