Every page on your site is the same kind of thing: a stack of sections down the page, each holding columns, each column holding elements - a heading, a picture, a button. Once you know those three words you know the whole designer, because everything in it is one of them.
The screens pictured here are an example ministry’s, so the names and figures in them are not yours. Everything they show works the same way in your own admin.
Open Site and choose a page from its Pages list.
The bar above the designer belongs to the page: its address, whether it is on the site, and Publish, which puts your changes out. The page itself is in the middle, drawn exactly as visitors see it, between two strips that stand in for the site's header and footer - those have screens of their own.
Find things to add on the rail at the left, and drag them onto the page.
Each icon opens one shelf beside the rail. Sections holds the kinds of section, the ready-made ones that arrive already arranged, and the shared sections used on more than one page. The other shelves hold the elements: Text, Media, Actions & links, Numbers, From elsewhere in the admin, Spacing. Drag a chip onto the page where it should sit: a line shows where it will land, and says why when it cannot land there. A click on a chip adds it where you are. Type in the box at the top of a shelf to find anything by name, on any shelf.
The rail, with its Sections shelf open. Type in the box at the top to find an element by name. Click anything on the page to select it; the small bar above it does the rest.
A click on an element, a column or a section outlines it on the page and names it on a small bar above it. The bar holds a grip that drags the thing somewhere else on the page, Move up and Move down, its Live switch, Duplicate for a section, Delete, and Close. A column beside another column shows a handle on its right edge that gives it two shares of the row or one; a picture shows a handle on its bottom edge that steps its height.
An element selected on the page: outlined, with its bar above it. See the whole page as a tree in the outline when that is easier.
Press Outline on the rail, or at the right end of the bar under the page, to see the page as a tree: one card per section, its columns side by side inside it, and the elements in their columns in order. Drag anything by its grip to move it; drag a chip from a shelf into it to add it. Each section's menu and trash can are on its card here. Pin keeps the outline open beside the page; unpinned, it floats over the page until you close it.
The outline, pinned beside the page: one card per section, columns inside it, elements inside them. On an empty page, press Describe It and Let AI Draft It to have a first draft written.
This needs the AI writing add-on, which is switched on per site; without it the card is not shown. Say what the page is for and give the facts - dates, places, prices, who it is for - and press Draft. The AI writes a header, a few sections and a closing button from only what you gave it, laid out as ordinary sections, exactly as a starter is. Read every word, add pictures and give each button somewhere to go, then Save. Nothing is saved until you do.
Or press Start From a PDF to turn a flyer or a leaflet you already have into a page.
Same add-on and the same rule as the AI draft: hidden without it, greyed until a key is set. Choose the PDF, and say what the page is for if it helps - "Leave out the giving appeal on the back page" is the kind of thing that box is for. Reading a long PDF can take a minute or two. What comes back is ordinary sections you can edit like any others, and nothing is saved until you press Save.
Read the two lists it leaves behind before you save.
They appear in the checklist at the top of the designer. "In the PDF, not on the page" is what it could not build - the answer to "what did I lose?" - and it is a record of that one import, so Dismiss This List when you have read it. "Needs you before this page works" is worked out from the page itself, so it is the same answer the page would give you an hour later, and it clears as you fix things.
Type words right on the page.
The page is your real page, drawn with your unsaved changes; Desktop and Phone in the bar show it either way. Double-click a heading, a paragraph, a button's label, a quote, a callout's title or a list item's title to type right there: Enter or clicking away finishes a heading or a button, Esc puts the words back. Words with colours, alignment or lists open in their settings instead, so nothing is lost. Nothing is saved yet.
The page, as visitors will see it, between two strips standing in for the site's header and footer, which have their own screens. Change everything else in the panel on the right.
The panel beside the page always shows the settings of whatever is selected - a section, a column, an element or a list item - and a prompt when nothing is. Change them there and the page redraws as you go; selecting something else replaces them. Nothing is saved yet.
The panel on the right, showing a Table element's settings. Press Save to keep your work, and Publish when it is ready.
Save keeps your work in the admin. Publish, in the bar above, saves anything unsaved and puts it where visitors see it. Undo and Redo walk back through everything since you opened the page.
Undo, Redo, whether anything is unsaved, Discard and Save.
The panel on the right stays put: it scrolls up and down when the settings run long, and it has no close. On a window too narrow to show the page, the settings open in a pop-up instead.