<p>Title says most of it. </p>

<p>I have inherited a Joomla site and the client wants part of the main template (a feature-type box) to be editable via the Joomla backend.</p>

<p>I guess really it is a content item that never gets displayed as its own page, but as a part of all pages.</p>

<p>Is that possible?</p>

<p>Thanks.</p>

<p>EDIT: By editable, I mean as a piece of content, not as editing the template HTML. I hardly expect non-tech users to get things right in a WYSIWYG text editor, much less change HTML code that could screw up the whole site.</p>

Joomla templates are always editable via the backend.  Just got to Extensions->Template Manager->Select the template you're using to edit it->and then up in the toolbar there will options for editing the html or the css as well as many design (look) options over on the right.  That is in Joomla 1.5.