Hi everyone, I’m building a grid for my portfolio site, and I have 6 cards on a 3X2 grid. I lined up everything nicely on the design mode (1st pic) but when it is in the publish or preview mode, it becomes misaligned.
Also, I have a hover interaction on each of these cards. For the initial state(thumbnail image), I set it at Opacity: 100%, but when I load the published site, the initial state is still at 0%. It is only when I start activating the hover interaction that it starts to work properly.
Webflow automatically generates responsive images from elements in their default state. This means that hover states, interactions, and other dynamic changes won’t be included in the responsive image generation process. For hover states and interactions, you’ll need to implement these using CSS classes and interactions panel settings.
For grid alignment and opacity issues, you can:
Check your grid settings in the Style panel
Verify that your breakpoint-specific styles are properly configured
Ensure opacity settings are consistently applied across different device sizes
Use the Preview mode to test your design across different screen sizes
Hopefully this helps! If you still need assistance, please reply here so somebody from the community can help.
Hi there! This is a common and frustrating issue, and hopefully the below steps can help you troubleshoot:
Layout misalignment between designer and published site
When your design looks correct in design mode but breaks in preview/publish mode, it’s usually caused by one of the following:
Missing or broken styles on larger breakpoints, or conflicting CSS (e.g., hidden overflow, margins, or transforms).
Absolute/Relative positioning of grid children or nested elements that behave differently when rendered live.
Unapplied combo classes or styles tied to interactions that don’t fully render until triggered.
What to check:
Look in Navigator to confirm all cards are nested correctly within the Grid container.
Double-check your grid settings and element positioning across breakpoints (especially desktop vs. base).
Use Webflow’s Preview mode + your browser’s Developer Tools (F12) on the published site to inspect layout differences.
Avoid using transforms (like scale() or translate()) in interactions without defining a clean initial state.
Initial state in interactions not applying on page load
This is a known issue if you’re only setting the initial state within the hover interaction. Webflow’s Interactions engine doesn’t automatically apply initial states unless the interaction is triggered on page load or scroll. Since hover interactions are only triggered on user input, the initial styles (like opacity: 100%) won’t apply on first load unless explicitly defined outside the hover trigger.
Fix:
Add a Page Load interaction or Page Trigger that sets the initial state of the element (opacity: 100%) when the page first loads
Or you can define that default state directly in the style panel, not just in the interaction
Let me know if that helps with what you need! If you still need further assistance, support.webflow.com is your fastest bet.
Hi Veronica, thanks so much for this! I managed to fixed the grid overflow issue, thanks for pointing out the potential causes.
As for the initial state in interaction, I tried the Page Load interaction that you mentioned, but there is a problem with this. I set the Thumbnail image as opacity :100 % upon Page load. But this creates another problem because it affects my hover interaction, the thumbnail wouldn’t fade out at all.
My default state for the thumbnail was already at 100% opacity in the style panel in my Design mode. Then in the interaction I also “Set Initial State” of this thumbnail at Opacity 100% too(see pic)
Was testing the interaction you mentioned and to ensure that images are displayed by default and the text is only visible on hovering, you can remove the first 2 actions from ‘hover cap start’ and ‘hover cap end’ animation and keep the last 2 as it is and it should ideally do the trick. Hope this helps.
