I have three very simple files:

**main.ftl**

```
<#include "header.ftl">

<h1>Test</h1>

<#include "footer.ftl">

```

**header.ftl**

```
<h1>Header</h1>

```

**footer.ftl**

```
<h1>Footer</h1>

```

Technically it should output three `h1`'s however my actual output is:

[![](https://i.stack.imgur.com/UgtgH.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/UgtgH.png)

1. I read that depending on the configuration the brackets for ftl might change from `<` and `>` to `[` and `]`, I've tried changing but still nothing.
2. I've used the `*` wildcard which checks parent directories and the current directory and still no luck.
3. Freemarker documentation states that by default the `include`
directive parses the content as a `.ftl` file so I should have no
issues:

> 
> parse: If it is true, then the included file will be parsed as FTL, otherwise the whole file will be considered as simple text (i.e, no FreeMarker constructs will be searched in it). If you omit this option, then it defaults to true.
> 
> 
> 

So why isn't my template being parsed?