How to preview a blog post before publishing

Community resources
1

Hi there,

Does anyone know how I can preview a blog post and see in full screen before publishing? Seems like a pretty common feature in other platforms, but not seeing anything.

All I see is Save Draft, Stage for Publish, Publish and Schedule.

Thanks!

Here is my site Read-Only: LINK
(how to share your site Read-Only link)

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2

Option 1. Preview in Designer

Option 2. Preview in Editor
Once saved, go back into collection item and click link icon next to item heading

Screenshot 2021-06-04 at 12.13.58
Screenshot 2021-06-04 at 12.13.581621×522 45.3 KB

3

Hmm. Thanks for the reply. But I’m not seeing that Option 1 that posted shows a full-page preview of a post. And in your Option 2 – I’m new to Webflow, so maybe I’m missing something. Our posts are in Collections. Not Editor. And I don’t see the icon you’ve circled.

Sorry, can you assist?

2 Likes
4

Yeah that option isn’t there for me either Screen Shot 2021-09-20 at 12.57.24 PM

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5

Hey @Cathy_Reisenwitz to preview a CMS item in the designer follow these steps. Hope this helps.

  1. Go into Preview mode :eye: (closing the CMS panel if open)
  2. From the Pages menu choose the CMS template page
  3. A new menu appears to select the item you want to preview

CleanShot 2021-09-22 at 13.46.32@2x

CleanShot 2021-09-22 at 13.47.18

2 Likes
6

Hi, there are two problems with this route to a preview of content. First: in a layered organisation of site management, not everyone who has Editor rights may also access Designer. Second : it’s cumbersome to exit Editor, enter Designer if you can, look up the Drafted post and click the eye. I’ve looked and looked but I’m surprised there isn’t any simpler way to preview draft pages when using the Editor.

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7

Hi @NorbertvH
You can just stage a post for publish within the editor, then navigate to the page without publishing them to the live site.

8

“You can just stage a post for publish within the editor, then navigate to the page without publishing them to the live site.”

I just tried this and it doesn’t work. The URL just produces a 404 since the page is not published.

9

Hi @dsnodgrass
You will need to navigate to the page while logged into the editor using the editors controls on the bottom bar. The page won’t be public and therefore it will show 404 if you try to use the url

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10

What about posts with embedded code, is there any way to preview them without publishing? I can’t find this option anywhere. Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks!

11

Hi @Alvorense
If the code has any javascript, then I don’t believe so

12

Thanks @Smith-Cordell , sorry for this late reply. It took me a while to figure out how to navigate to the unpublished page. I found no navigation in the bottom bar I could use for that - just the buttons to Pages, Collections, Posts etc. Then I noticed the small icon to the right of the Post’s title in the Post editor: navigate to Detail Page. That brought me to a preview, to some extent. Illustrations present in the staged post were not shown.

13

I am still befuddled. I created a blog post that is now in “staged for publishing”.

  1. I see no way to preview it. When I tap on the arrow, I go to the entry page

    Webflow_-_Celebrate
    Webflow_-_Celebrate971×78 11.7 KB

    Webflow_-_Celebrate-2
    Webflow_-_Celebrate-2797×507 78.1 KB

  2. I see no preview link on the bottom of either page, nor on the top

  3. I can successfully use the clunky approach - go to my blog template page, then scroll through 100s of posts to find it (it’s organized alphabetically instead of newest at top).

So is number 3 the only choice?

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14

We sort of solved this for our users at Webflow CMS where we push to your staging site (at webflow.io) and not your main domain to preview the full post (along with any HTML embeds rendered) and then take it down once you’re done previewing.

15

This is what I’ve been doing to preview draft CMS pages (as of December 2023):

  1. Save your CMS page draft.
  2. Go to Pages/CMS Collection pages and click on your CMS collection.
  3. This will open a different (already published) CMS page… not your draft one. But that’s OK.
  4. With this random page shown in Designer, toggle the preview mode by clicking on the Play button on the upper right.
  5. Now, in preview mode, while previewing this random CMS page, use the dropdown on the upper left of your screen to navigate to your draft CMS page.
17

it is still same i see blank page only