Preview & Publishing

Preview changes shows the page in a new tab exactly as visitors will see it, including edits you have not saved. The Publish / Update button in the editor toolbar saves the page’s sections and, for a draft, publishes it. Scheduling, making a page private and unpublishing are done on the WordPress page screen.

When to use it

Before publishing, to check the page in your theme and at different screen widths.
To make a change live on a page that is already published.
To change a page’s status, publication date or visibility, which the Promptless WP editor does not do.

To preview changes to colours, fonts and other global settings across the site, use Preview across site instead; see Staging Global Settings Changes.

How to preview a page

In the editor toolbar, select Preview changes (the eye icon).
The page opens in a new tab with your current sections, saved or not, in its display mode with the theme’s header and footer where that mode includes them.
To check other screen widths, resize the browser window or use your browser’s device view.

Selecting Preview changes again closes the previous preview tab and opens a fresh one. A preview link works for 15 minutes; after that, preview again from the editor. The preview uses the site’s saved global settings.

How to publish a new page

Build the page in the editor. Its status in the toolbar reads Draft.
Select Preview changes to check it.
Select Publish in the editor toolbar. The page is published with its sections and a message confirms it.

To publish later, set the date on the WordPress page screen first (see below). Once the page is scheduled, the editor’s button reads Update Scheduled and saves the sections without changing the date.

Updating Existing Pages

If updating a page that’s already live:

Make your changes in the Promptless WP editor.
Preview to check them.
Select Update in the editor toolbar. The change is live immediately; there is no second step in the WordPress page screen.

Every save is also kept as a version you can compare and restore — see Revision History. If the page audit has found problems, saving still works and a message tells you how many remain — see Audit While You Edit.

What the save button does

The button’s label follows the page’s status.

Label	Page status	What it does
Publish	Draft	Saves the sections and publishes the page.
Update	Published	Saves the sections; the change is live at once.
Update Scheduled	Scheduled	Saves the sections; the page still publishes on its date.
Update Private	Private	Saves the sections; the page stays private.
Update Pending	Pending review	Saves the sections; the page stays pending.

The button is inactive until there is something to save. Global settings are saved separately with Save Settings.

How to schedule, unpublish or change visibility

These use WordPress’s own controls. Save your sections in the Promptless WP editor first, then select Back to Editor to reach the page screen.

Schedule: change the publish date to a future date, then select Schedule.
Unpublish: switch the page back to draft and save.
Private or password-protected: change the page’s visibility and save.

The page’s display mode (Canvas, Full Width or Shortcode) is also set on this screen, in the Promptless WP box; see Editor Overview.

Limits and common problems

The live page does not show the change. The sections were not saved: the button still reads Publish or Update and is active. Select it. If it was saved, a page-caching plugin or your host’s cache may be serving an older copy; clear that cache.
Global setting changes do not show in the preview. Preview uses saved global settings. Select Save Settings, or use Preview across site to check them before applying.
The preview tab shows the old page. The link is more than 15 minutes old. Select Preview changes again.
Saving shows that someone has taken over editing. Another person opened the page and took over the edit lock, so your save was stopped; see Editor Overview.