Save and publish your post from the visual builder

In short. In the visual builder, Save commits the canvas to your draft without touching the live site. Publish saves the canvas and pushes it live (or moves a draft to published). While you edit, the builder auto-saves a background snapshot every few minutes — if your browser crashes, that snapshot is offered for restore the next time you open the post. The builder only writes canvas content; title, slug, tags, and SEO fields live on the regular post form. That's the whole flow.

On this page: What Save and Publish do · Steps — Save · Steps — Publish · Recover after a crash · Troubleshooting · FAQ

How to save and publish your post from the visual builder

What is this for?

Save and Publish are how you commit canvas work in the visual builder (the drag-and-drop editor in your admin). Save writes the current canvas to your post draft — no public-site change. Publish saves the canvas and pushes it live (or moves a draft post to Published). While you edit, the builder takes quiet auto-snapshots every few minutes; if the browser crashes, that snapshot is offered for restore the next time you open the post.

Scope: the visual builder save only writes canvas content and post status. It does not touch title, slug, excerpt, tags, categories, featured image, scheduling, or SEO — those fields live on the regular post form. If you update both in the same session, you save once in the regular form and once in the visual builder.

Good use cases

• Saving in-progress work across sessions. Click Save at the end of each editing session. Reopen the post any time — the canvas picks up exactly where you left off.
• Publishing or re-publishing. When the canvas is ready to go live, click Publish. Same flow for live fixes: open the post, edit the text block, click Publish — the public site updates within seconds.
• Recovering after a crash. Reopen the post after a browser crash and look for the "Restore your auto-saved draft" banner. Click Restore to load the snapshot, then click Save to commit it.

What NOT to use this for

• Updating title, slug, tags, categories, featured image, or SEO fields. Those live on the regular post form — the visual builder save does not write them.
• Scheduling a future publish. Scheduling is on the regular post form. The visual builder Publish button publishes immediately, not at a scheduled time.
• Saving a plain-editor post. If the post has no canvas (it's in a plain text editor), use the regular post form's Save instead.
• Confirming a past save. The save flow shows no permanent badge. Check the Last Modified date on the Blog list, or visit the public-site URL.

How this connects to other features

• Regular post form — owns every metadata field (title, slug, tags, categories, featured image, scheduling, SEO). The visual builder owns the canvas only.
• Revisions — every Save and Publish creates a revision snapshot. Roll back to an earlier version from the revision history if a publish went wrong.
• Public site rendering — Publish triggers the renderer; visitors see new canvas content within seconds.
• Post status filter — Published and Draft posts appear under separate filters on the Blog list. Clicking Publish moves the post from Draft to Published.

Before you start

• Confirm you are in the visual builder. The visual builder shows a drag-and-drop canvas. The plain editor shows a single text area. This save flow applies only to the canvas.
• Create the post first. The visual builder Save does not create a post. Use the regular post form's "Add new post" before opening the canvas.
• Stay logged in. The save needs an active admin session. If you have been idle a long time, reload the editor before saving.
• Click outside the block you just edited before clicking Save — this commits the change to the editor's state.
• Watch scheduled publishes. Clicking Publish before the scheduled time publishes immediately. Use Save if you want to keep the schedule intact.

Where to go

Dashboard → Blog (or Pages, Events, or any custom post type) → click a post → click Edit in visual builder (or open a post that already lives in the visual builder by default) → use the Save and Publish buttons in the top toolbar of the editor.

Steps — Save your work

1. Open the post in the visual builder

From the Blog list, click the title of a post that uses the visual builder. The editor loads with your canvas — every section, block, image, and column from your last save.

2. Edit the canvas

Drag, drop, edit text, swap images, change columns. The canvas updates as you go, but no save has happened yet. The editor's title bar usually shows a small "Unsaved changes" indicator while you have edits that are not committed.

3. Click Save

In the editor's top toolbar, click Save. The button shows a brief loading spinner while the save runs. When it completes, you see a green confirmation flash that reads something like "Success! The blog has been updated." The "Unsaved changes" indicator goes away.

4. Continue editing or close the editor

After Save, you can keep editing. Each click of Save commits another snapshot. When you are done, click Exit (or close the tab). The system warns you if you still have unsaved changes since the last Save.

Steps — Publish your work to the public site

1. Confirm the post metadata on the regular form

Before you publish, make sure the title, slug, tags, categories, and any other metadata are set on the regular post form. The visual builder Publish button does not write these fields, so they need to be ready before you publish.

2. Click Publish in the visual builder

In the visual builder's top toolbar, click Publish. The button shows a loading spinner. The system runs the save, sets the post status to Published, and stamps the publish date.

3. Confirm the public-site result

You see a green flash that reads "The blog has been updated." (or similar wording). Open the public site in another tab and visit the post URL. The new canvas content is live.

Steps — Recover an auto-saved draft after a crash

1. Reopen the post in the visual builder

Open the Blog list, click the post that was lost, and open it in the visual builder.

2. Look for the Restore prompt

If the auto-save snapshot is newer than the live post (which is what happens after a crash before a Save), the editor shows a banner near the top: "We have an auto-saved draft from . Restore it?" with two buttons — Restore and Discard.

3. Restore or discard

Click Restore to load the auto-saved canvas onto the editor. Then click Save to commit the restored canvas to the live draft. Click Discard if you would rather keep the existing live content and ignore the auto-save snapshot.

What success looks like

After Save, the green confirmation flash appears, the "Unsaved changes" indicator disappears, and the canvas is committed to the post draft. After Publish, the public-site URL renders the new canvas within seconds. The post's Last Modified date in the Blog list updates to the moment of the save.

If you click Save and then immediately reload the editor, the canvas you see should be exactly the canvas you saved. Reloading the editor is a good way to confirm a save committed correctly when you are not sure.

What to do if it does not work

• You see a generic error like "Oops, something went wrong! Please try again later." Your admin session may have timed out. Reload the editor (hold Shift and click reload). If the editor reopens with your work intact, click Save again. If your work is lost, the auto-save snapshot may have it — see the Restore prompt on next open.
• You see "Error: Invalid JSON content. Please refresh the page and try again." The canvas content is in a state the system cannot read. This is rare and usually means the editor's local state has corrupted. Reload the editor; you may lose the unsaved changes since your last Save, but the post will reopen correctly.
• You see "Error: Post doesn't exist!" The post you were editing has been deleted (perhaps by another admin in another tab). Close the editor and start again from a fresh post.
• The Save button does not respond when clicked. Check the browser console for errors. The most common cause is a slow connection — wait a few seconds and try again. If the button stays unresponsive, reload the editor.
• Publish ran but the public site still shows the old content. Some sites have a CDN cache that takes a minute or two to clear. Wait two or three minutes and reload the public-site page. If the content is still old after five minutes, the cache may need a manual purge from your hosting admin.
• The auto-save Restore prompt appears even though you have not been working on the post. Another admin may have edited the post in another tab. Discard the prompt to keep the live content, or Restore to take the other admin's auto-save as the starting point. Coordinate with the team if this happens often.
• You restored an auto-save but the canvas does not look right. Auto-saves are point-in-time snapshots. The canvas you restored is exactly what was on the editor at that moment, not a merged version. If the snapshot was taken in the middle of an edit, you will see the half-finished edit. Continue editing from there.
• A media reference on the canvas points to an image that has been deleted from the Media Library. The block shows a broken image. Replace it from the visual builder by clicking the block and picking a different image from the Media Library.
• You hit Publish by accident on a draft you did not want live. Re-edit the post in the regular post form, change the status from Published back to Draft, and Save. The post leaves the public site immediately.

Example 1: Building a post over several days

An editor opens a fresh post in the visual builder and works on it in three sessions across the week. Each session ends with a click of Save. The canvas is exactly where it was left each time the post reopens. At the end of the week, the canvas is polished, the metadata is confirmed on the regular post form, and clicking Publish pushes the post live. The Blog list shows the post as Published with the correct Last Modified timestamp.

Example 2: Recovering after a power outage

An editor is two hours into a long post. The last manual Save was 45 minutes ago. Power goes out and the browser closes ungracefully.

Power restored. The editor reopens the post in the visual builder. The editor shows: "We have an auto-saved draft from 11:23 (12 minutes before the outage). Restore it?" Clicking Restore loads the canvas with most of the work intact — only 12 minutes of edits are missing, not 45. The editor finishes those 12 minutes, clicks Save, and the post is back on track.

Without auto-save, the recovery would have rolled back to the last manual Save 45 minutes earlier.

Frequently asked questions

Does Save always update the public site?

No. Save commits the canvas to the post draft. Publish is what pushes to the public site. If the post is already in the Published state, Publish updates the live content; if the post is in Draft, Publish moves it to Published.

How often does auto-save run?

Auto-save runs every few minutes in the background while you are editing. The exact interval is set by your site admin, but the most common setting is two or three minutes.

Where is the auto-save snapshot stored?

It is stored alongside the post but in a separate slot from the live content. It is offered for restore the next time you open the editor, if it is newer than the live post.

Can I see a list of all my saves?

Each save creates a revision in the post's revision history. Open the regular post form, look for the Revisions panel, and you will see the timeline.

Can I roll back to an older save?

Yes ��� see Restore from a revision. The visual builder save flow itself does not have a "roll back" button, but the revision history does.

Does the visual builder have an "undo" button?

The editor has a per-session undo (Ctrl+Z or the Undo button in the toolbar) that walks back through your unsaved changes. Once you click Save, the undo history resets — to roll back further, use the revision history.

What happens if my computer goes to sleep with the editor open?

The editor stays in the same state when the computer wakes up. Your unsaved changes are still there. Click Save before closing the laptop if you want a guaranteed snapshot.

Will I lose work if the auto-save fails?

If auto-save itself fails for some reason, your unsaved work is still in the editor's local state until you click Save or close the tab. Clicking Save at the first opportunity is the safest habit.

Next steps

• See Write and publish a post for the regular post form's metadata fields and the non-visual-builder save flow.
• See Restore from a revision for rolling back to an earlier version of a post's content.
• See Schedule a post for setting a future publish date instead of publishing immediately.
• See Build a post in the visual builder for a tour of the canvas, blocks, and sections.