The Editor lets you update and add content in a simple interface, which is great for clients or teammates who don't need the complexity of the Designer.
Note: We're transitioning to Workspaces, and are in the process of updating our content. Visit the blog post to read more about these updates and changes.
The Editor is an interface we can use to access and edit the contents of a published site. It's what collaborators (like clients, customers) — it's where anyone can log in and get access.
If you're in a Webflow project, you can visit the Editor from the Designer over to the left, or from the Project Settings over to the right. Or, you (and any collaborators) can visit using the URL through your browser. Just add edit? Except, it's now become obvious: the question mark is at the beginning of edit. Let's try that again: just add question mark edit.
Back in our project, from our Project Settings, we can go right on over to Editor. We can add and configure permissions for our collaborators, and even control branding. We can add custom branding for our organization, or a client's organization. We can do that from Project Settings.
Three brief things to note about the Editor:
#1: You can literally manipulate content on the page. Want to change some text inside a heading? You can go in and change some text inside a heading. Want to replace this image used in the image element here? You can go in and replace the image.
This applies to content in your project (we're switching back over here to the Designer) in which, on any editable element, we've gone over to our Element Settings panel and checked "Collaborators can edit this element." What does it mean when that's checked? It means collaborators can edit this element. If it's unchecked, they'll still see it in the Editor but it won't be editable.
#2: second thing to note. If you've created one or more collections, collaborators can access them. They can go into any collection. And they can click to modify an existing collection item — like a blog post — or, let's cancel out of that, they can of course create a new item — in this case a new blog post.
On the top-right, if any collaborator wants to come back to this post later — if they don't want it to publish even if we publish other changes — they can check "Draft."
That's editing collections.
#3 — the final thing we want to mention here — is that changes in the Editor? These aren't updating in real-time. The content you're changing won't go live until you or a collaborator publish the project — whether through The Editor here, or through the Designer.
Speaking of the Designer, if we're visiting the Editor from our Project? We can get back to it at any time by switching right back over.
That's the Editor. Actually, this is the Designer. That's the Editor.
Unlike the Designer, where you build and design your website, the Editor only allows you to edit and manage the content. With its simplified interface, the Editor gives you several tools to manage a published website. And with Collaborator access, you can invite your clients to manage their own site without breaking the design.
Learn more about the Editor in our Webflow University course client's guide to the Editor course, which you're welcome to follow along.
The Webflow Editor lives in your published website. It allows you to edit the content on your site directly on the page or manage pages and content through the Editor panel.
If you're in your Webflow dashboard or designing a project in the Designer, you can access the Editor in one of the following ways:
Collaborators can access the Editor for their website by adding /?edit to the end of their website URL in the browser address bar (e.g., yourwebsite.com/?edit). Once they log in, they can access their website in Editor mode.
When they return to the site later, they may see the “Edit site” button in the lower right corner, which they can click to hop into Editor mode.
Let your Collaborators know that they will need to set their browser to accept cookies from all third parties to use the Editor — otherwise, they may see an error message when trying to log in to the Editor.
Webflow officially supports the Editor on the latest version of Chrome or Safari’s evergreen release, plus 2 versions for varying update cycles. Webflow also unofficially supports the use of all modern browsers.
* Degree of browser support depends upon features used (e.g., flexbox has partial support in IE 11, filter has no support in IE 11 and partial in Edge). More details can be found at:
Webflow doesn’t support IE 9 or IE 10 in any situation. Read more about this decision.
Good to know: An evergreen browser is one that updates itself automatically, meaning that most people have the newest, automatically updated version.
If you run into issues using Webflow on experimental browsers, please report your issue under the experimental browsers category on the Webflow Forum.
Note: You can determine the browser and operating system version you're using with What's my Browser.
When you open the Editor, you'll be able to explore the site in preview mode or "live site" mode. To switch to Edit mode, click the "Edit site" button at the lower right of the page.
Go "Back to live site" when you want to see the site in preview mode.
If you or your collaborators see an error message when trying to log into the Editor, try one of the following fixes:
Unlike the Designer, the Editor allows multiple people to edit static and dynamic content at the same time. One thing to note: one person can work in the Designer, at the same time - many people work in the Editor. If two people are editing the same content at the same time, the last edits "win," so you'll still want to coordinate editing times with your teammates. Learn more about the Editor.
When you access the Editor, you’ll see your live website with the Editor toolbar (the gray bar) collapsed at the bottom of your screen. Through this toolbar, you can access the various Editor panels to manage page settings, dynamic content, forms, and your Editor account. You can also see and publish the changes you make through the Editor.
The Editor toolbar features the following tabs and icons:
Menu - Use this menu to go to the Dashboard, your Project Settings, or the Designer. This button features the Webflow logo. You can replace this with your own logo, or your client's, on our Pro plan. Learn more about Editor branding.
Pages - opens the Pages Panel, which lists your site’s static pages and dynamic Collection pages. From here, you can browse for a page, click to view the live page and manage the settings of any page.
Collections - opens the Collections Panel, which lists all your Collections. Clicking on a Collection opens a new tab in the toolbar, which opens the Collection items’ panel listing of all the items in that Collection. Here, you can edit any item or create new ones. This is very similar to the CMS Panel in the Designer. Read more about the CMS Panel.
Forms - opens the Forms Panel where you can see and download form submissions made on the site.
Account Settings (icon) - opens the Account Settings Panel where you can edit your Collaborator account info and upload a profile image.
Help & Support (icon) - opens the Help and Support Panel, where you can find answers to a few common questions about using the Editor.
Log out (icon) - logs you out of the Editor after confirmation.
Back to live site (button) — Switches from Editor mode to Live-site mode, which allows you to view your site as your site visitors will see it.
Saving/Saved - all changes are saved automatically in the Editor. The Saving... and Saved status at the bottom left show this.
Changelog - this shows the number of unpublished changes next to the publish button at the bottom left. Clicking the changelog reveals a list of items and pages with unpublished changes, and you can see which Collaborator made them.
Publish (button) - allows you to publish all the changes you make when in the Editor.
Editing right on the page is pretty intuitive with the Editor. As you hover over various elements, an edit icon will appear to the upper right of editable elements. To edit any of these elements, simply click the icon.
When hovering over editable text elements, you’ll see a light-gray outline around the text element and a pencil icon in the upper right. You can edit the text by clicking into the box.
You can also format words or phrases by selecting them and choosing the formatting from the floating toolbar that appears. Read more about inline text formatting.
For Rich text elements, you can do more: add media, create lists, style, and format your text further. Learn more about rich text elements.
You can also replace images right on the site. Just hover your cursor over the image you want to replace, then click the picture icon. This will allow you to select and upload a new image from your computer.
To edit a button element, hover your cursor over the button and click on the Settings icon that appears in the upper right.
You’ll see two options:
From within the Pages Panel in the Editor, you can manage vital page settings like SEO meta title and description, Open Graph title and description, and Open Graph image. You can also manage page password protection settings for static pages and RSS feed settings for Collection pages.
To access the settings of a page:
You can also search for pages by name using the search bar.
If you have Collections in your project, you can access them in the Editor through the Collections tab. The Collections Panel lists all your collections. Clicking on a collection opens a new tab titled the name of the collection. This tab contains all Collection items within that Collection.
You can edit existing items by clicking on them or creating new items by clicking the + New button and filling out the item’s various fields.
When you’re done entering content or updating fields, you can choose to:
Create a new item or save an existing item. It will be staged to publish and go live on your site next time you publish it.
Publish your item right away (without waiting for the next site-wide publish to take place).
Save as Draft if you aren’t quite ready for the item to go on the live site.
Cancel to discard changes.
Learn more about creating and publishing Collection items. Read also about publishing restrictions.
You can view the Collection page for that item by clicking the icon to the right of the item name. This collapses the panels to show you the page for the item you’re currently viewing right in the browser. If you’d like, you can edit it there, instead of in the panel.
To go back to the Collection item's list, click the Back (←) button.
In the Collection Panel, you can see all your Collection items and their statuses. You can delete, archive, or change the status of several items all at the same time. To do that:
To close the Collection tab, click the close (x) button in the top right of the tab.
After making all these changes, you will want to view them, make sure they're saved and ready to be published before clicking Publish.
While working in the Editor, the Editor panel covers most of your website. To collapse the Editor panel and view your website, click the View Site button at the top.
In this view, you can browse your website just like you usually would, and make or view changes to any page.
The changes made in the Editor won’t be made on the live site until you either publish the edited item(s) individually or press the Publish button to publish all staged changes. You will need to confirm that you want to publish all changes before the site is actually published. The green Published button will confirm this.
Important
When you publish from the Editor, your site will publish to both the staging and custom domain. To avoid this, publish from the Designer or project settings.
If you have any forms in your project, the Editor will include a Forms tab. Here, you’ll be able to view some basic information from forms people have submitted, but it’s most useful as a place for you to download the complete form data. In the downloaded CSV file (a format that works with all the major spreadsheet apps), you’ll be able to see all the submitted info.
By default, you and site Collaborators can edit all content on the live site using the Editor, but you can make elements uneditable if you'd like.
You can also toggle Collaborators on a selected element using the shortcut keys:
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