The Subject bar template is intended to be placed at the end of an article, after the References or External links and before any navboxes and categories. It offers a variant to several floating box templates that link to books, portals, and Wikipedia's sister projects but that typically cause formatting issues because of their size and alignment.

The template's documentation contains several examples where links to books, portals and sister projects are shown in various combinations, all within the one Subject bar template. It offers an alternative to the multiple variations of portal templates that may appear in the article's "See also" section.