Creating items to run against

Each type of Compound Template needs a content item to run against: you need to run a Page Template against a Page, a Component Template against a Component and a Template Building Block against a package.

Creating Pages and Components
You can run a Compound Template against an existing Page or Component, or you can create a Page or a Component in the Content Manager Explorer. You need to make sure to create an item that has a format the Compound Template expects. For example, if your Compound Page Template contains a Dreamweaver Template Building Block that visualizes the Description metadata field of the Page, then obviously, the Page you create must have a metadata field called Description.
Creating packages
Creating a package for your Template Building Block Compound Template to process requires you to first build a Compound Template that produces the package that your Template Building Block Compound Template expects as input. When you have created such a Compound Template and it successfully produces the package you need, you can run the Compound Template that produces the package in Template Builder (as explained in Running Compound Templates), select the last Template Building Block in the sequence, and click the Save Package button in Package view:
This pops up a standard Windows Save dialog that allows you to browse to a folder on your local or network drive and specify a name for the XML file that contains the package.
Alternatively, you can add your Template Building Block Compound Template under the last Template Building Block in the Compound Template so that it receives the package as input. This approach is less preferable because you need to wait for the preceding Template Building Blocks to finish every time you want to debug your Template Building Block Compound Template.