Draft & Preview
Draft and preview features allow content to be prepared and reviewed before it becomes publicly available.
A draft stores unpublished work.
A preview shows how that work is expected to appear when published.
What It Means in Practice
An editor may:
- Create a draft
- Add images and content
- Preview the page
- Send the preview to someone else
- Make corrections
- Publish
The public website remains unchanged until the final step.
Why Preview Matters
The editing interface does not always represent the final website exactly.
A real preview can reveal:
- Awkward line breaks
- Broken components
- Missing images
- Layout problems
- Poor mobile behaviour
- Accessibility problems
- Incorrect links
- Unexpected theme styling
Ghost supports live previews for web, email, desktop, and mobile output.
Headless systems often need separate preview infrastructure because the CMS does not render the final frontend itself. Contentful documents its own content preview system.
Draft vs. Staging
A draft is unpublished content.
A staging environment is typically a separate version of the website or application used to test broader technical changes.
They solve different problems.
A copy change may only need preview.
A major template or integration change may need a development or staging environment.
Common Problems
Common problems include:
- Preview looking different from production
- Sharing inaccessible admin-only preview URLs
- Draft URLs becoming publicly indexable
- Editors publishing just to see how something looks
- Reviews happening from screenshots instead of the actual page
- Headless implementations lacking a reliable preview workflow
How to Improve
Make preview part of the normal editorial workflow.
Editors should be able to review realistic output without manipulating production content or requiring developer intervention.