Intro to the CMS Editor | Webflow University

This video features an old UI. Updated version coming soon!

Unlike the Designer, where you build and design your website, the Editor only allows you and Workspace members to edit and manage the content. With its simplified interface, the Editor gives you several tools to manage a published website.

And, with content editor access, you can invite your clients to manage their own site without breaking the design. In this lesson, content editors can learn more about how to access the Editor and how to troubleshoot any log in issues.

In this lesson:

The Editor toolbar is highlighted at the bottom of the webpage shown.

Client's guide to the Editor course

Learn more about the Editor in our Webflow University course client's guide to the Editor course, which you're welcome to follow along.

Accessing the Editor

You can access the Webflow Editor after publishing your site (either to the webflow.io staging subdomain or a custom domain). It allows you to edit the content on your site directly on the page or manage pages and content through the Editor panel.

Access the Editor through Webflow’s interface

If you're in your Webflow dashboard or designing a site in the Designer, you can access the Editor in one of the following ways:

From the Site menu in the Dashboard

The left image shows the 3 disclosure dots on the site thumbnail. The right image shows the expanded menu, with the Editor option highlighted.

From the top toolbar in the Site settings

The Editor button in the top toolbar of Site settings.

From the menu in the Designer

Step one on the left, click on the Webflow W icon. Step two on the right, select the Editor button from the dropdown menu. — Open the Menu button ("W" icon) at the upper left corner of the Designer and choose "Editor"

Access the Editor from the live site

Content editors 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 content editors 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. Learn more about troubleshooting Editor login errors.

The “Edit site” button on the site page.

Editor requirements: supported browsers

Webflow officially supports the Editor on the last 3 major versions of all modern browsers, including Chrome, Edge, Firefox, and Safari.

The degree of browser support depends upon features used (e.g., filter has partial support in Edge). For features that have limited support in some browsers, additional details can be found in their associated articles:

CSS transforms 3d - Used by Interactions
CSS transitions - Used by Interactions
CSS flexbox - Used in Style panel > Layout
CSS filters - Used by Interactions
CSS grid - Used in Style panel > Layout

Webflow does not support Internet Explorer. While sites made in Webflow will continue to support all industry standard features supported in modern web browsers, we cannot guarantee that sites will function correctly in Internet Explorer. Learn more about sunsetting Internet Explorer support.

Pro tip: You can determine your browser and operating system version with What’s My Browser.

Switch between Editor mode and Live site mode

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.

Troubleshooting Editor login errors

If you, your Workspace members, or your content editors see an error message when trying to log into the Editor, try one of the following fixes:

Check that your browser accepts cookies, and if not, turn that on
Log out of the Editor, clear your browser's cache, then log back in
Log in to the Editor via an incognito-mode window
Try logging in via a different browser
Try sending a new content editor invitation to your content editor and ask them to use an incognito window to create their new account
Try removing or disabling custom code
If none of those work, please contact support

Note: If you have custom code on your site, the custom code may affect the Editor. This happens because the Editor renders over the published site. Try removing or disabling your custom code.

Multi-user collaboration

The Editor allows multiple team members and content editors to edit static and dynamic site content at the same time. 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 and content editors. The Editor also provides a Site activity log so you can see who edited your site, and what edits they made, before publishing your site.

Similarly to the Editor, you can collaborate with team members in the Designer, if you want to edit your site’s design. Learn more about collaboration in the Webflow Designer.

Anatomy of the Editor toolbar

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 showing the Pages, Orders, Ecommerce, and Forms tabs, as well as “1 Unpublished change.”

The Editor toolbar features the following tabs and icons:

Menu - Use this menu to go to the Dashboard, your Site Settings, or the Designer. This button features the Webflow logo.

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 content editor 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. When you make a change to your site in the Editor, you will see either a “Saving…” or “Saved” status.

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 content editor or Workspace member made them.

Publish (button) - allows you to publish all the changes you make when in the Editor.

On-page editing

You can edit right on the page with the Editor. As you hover over various elements, a “pencil” icon or “picture” icon will appear to the upper right of editable elements. To edit any of these elements, simply click the icon.

The “pencil” icon which appears over an editable heading.

The “picture” icon which appears over an editable image.

Note: Some styling and custom code will not show as they should appear on the published site. That is normal behavior when you’re in the Editor.

Editing and formatting text

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.

A paragraph is selected in the Editor and the “pencil” icon is visible.

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.

The formatting toolbar that appears when a word is highlighted in the Editor.

For Rich text elements, you can do more: add media, create lists, style, and format your text further. Learn more about rich text elements.

The Rich text formatting toolbar that appears when rich text is selected in the Editor.

Replacing images

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.

An image of a night sky full of stars has an edit icon on the top-right corner.

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Note: Any visual styles you’ve created for an element in the Designer, such as solid color overlay, border color, or shadow, will automatically apply to any image or background image you replace through the Editor.

Editing buttons

To edit a button element, hover your cursor over the button and click on the Settings "cog" icon that appears in the upper right.

You’ll see two options:

Edit link settings - lets you update the link of the button
Edit text - enables you to change the button text

The edit button drop down menu includes two options: edit link settings and edit text.

Managing page settings

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.

The Pages tab is highlighted in the Page settings page within the Editor. — Managing page settings in the Editor

To access the settings of a page:

Open the Pages tab in the Editor panel
Hover your cursor over a page in the list
Click the Settings button that appears

There are six different blog post pages. The settings button for a blog post page is highlighted on the first page titled Ecommerce product photography tips: a beginner’s guide.

You can also search for pages by name using the search bar.

The search bar called “search pages…” is highlighted in the pages top bar section. There are five team member pages on this collection.

Note: Clicking on the page, instead of the Settings button, will close the Pages panel and open the corresponding page.

Creating and managing dynamic content

If you have Collections in your site, 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.

A new tab called Blog Posts has been added to the tabs section in the editors toolbar. This tab is highlighted among the other five tabs.

Creating and editing content

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.

A green “new blog post” button is highlighted on the top right corner of the collection page called Blog posts. There are six pages already created and published on this page. — The “New blog post” button is highlighted in the Editor.

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 the 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

A green “create” button is pressed with a dropdown menu including a publish, save as a draft and schedule option. This dropdown menu is highlighted in the collection page “My amazing blog post” settings page. — Publish an individual item in the Editor

Learn more about creating and publishing Collection items.

You can view the Collection page for that item by clicking the "page" 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.

The collection page toolbar includes a icon to the right of the page name which is for navigating to the detail page. This icon is highlighted on the top bar.

To go back to the Collection item's list, click the Back button.

The left arrow icon is highlighted on the collection page top bar. Next to it is the collection page name “My amazing blog post.”

Managing content

In the Collection panel, you can see all your Collection items and their statuses. If you work with a large database of content, managing your Collection items can be a lifesaver when determining what to edit. You can do this by:

To close the Collection tab, click the "close" (X) button in the top right of the tab.

The “close” (x) button in the Lessons tab of the Editor toolbar.

Viewing and publishing changes

After making all these changes, you'll want to view them, and make sure they're saved and ready to be published before clicking Publish.

Viewing changes on the live site

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.

The View Site button is highlighted in its position above the editor tool bar.

In this view, you can browse your website just like you usually would, and make or view changes to any page.

Publishing

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.

The green Published button has been clicked and a notice has appeared saying Publish successful and “You published 1 change to your site.” There is a check mark indicating the changes have been saved next to the Back to live site button.

Important: When you publish from the Editor, your site will publish to both the webflow.io staging domain and custom domain. To avoid this, publish from the Designer or site settings.

Accessing form submissions

If you have any forms in your site, 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.

Editor settings for elements

By default, you, Workspace members, and content editors can edit all content on the live site using the Editor, but you can make elements uneditable for content editors if you'd like.

Open the site in the Designer
Select the element you want to make uneditable
Go to Element settings (D)
Uncheck “Collaborators can edit this element”

Under the editor settings section the Collaborators can edit this element setting is checked.

You can also toggle content editors on a selected element using Command + Shift + L (on Mac) or Control + Shift + L (on Windows).

Important: CMS elements are always editable in the Editor.

Good to know: The ability to manage Memberships users and settings is not surfaced in the Editor. Instead, you will need to use the Designer or the API.

Content editor permissions

If your Workspace site has a CMS, Business, or Ecommerce site plan, you can invite content editors to collaborate on your site. Along with opening the site in the Editor, editing content, and staging changes, content editors can add CMS content and edit page settings.

Content editors also have different publishing permissions than Workspace members. Learn more about content editor publishing permissions.

Intro to the Editor

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.