Changes on a copy of a page are affecting the original

Hi all,

I’ve hit a problem on a complex page where it keeps overflowing despite me using ‘hidden’ on the section and container.

So - I then make a copy of the page so that I can pick it apart and solve it without affecting the original. But when I make a copy of a page, the changes I make on the copy are then affecting the original too.

Surely this shouldn’t happen, and a copied page should effectively be a new but identical page to start making changes on ? I’ve repeated the copy process with different pages, and the same happens every time – where a tweak on the copy also changes the original.

Any thoughts very welcome. This seems to make the idea of duplicating a page completely redundant…

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Most likely you are editing a symbol.

When looking for help with something occurring within a specific project, please share a read only link to the project. Without it, we can only guess.

What is a symbol?

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Thanks for your reply, no - it’s any element at all on the page. I understand that changing a symbol would change that symbol everywhere. – Indeed I do change symbols from anywhere.

It’s still doing it on both the duplicated page and the original page 5 hours later. It does it every time I duplicate a page - they continue to act like one and the same page.

@paultom can you do a screen recording for us(Try: https://www.useloom.com/) to show us the steps you are taking. Also please provide your preview link for us How to Enable a Webflow Share Link

Thanks!

—Austin

Here is the project link. You’ll see there are the home page and home-copy page, and changing the position of an element on one changes it in the other for me.

(I’m currently working on shifting positions of the background on the mobile versions, and would rather get this right on a copy and then transfer the final tweaks to the master in one clean process. Webflow seems to prefer clean and decisive changes.)

https://preview.webflow.com/preview/american-the-bill-hicks-story?utm_source=american-the-bill-hicks-story&preview=de66f10cdd256a93ae4f494b3b81234f

Thanks - have done a screen recording for you, but can’t work out how to upload it… one sec…

I’ve put the screen record on Vimeo here https://vimeo.com/317704993

Hi @paultom, I believe your elements likely share the same class. You must differentiate the classes of an object otherwise it will be adjusted anywhere the element exists on your site. If you look st the screenshot below it says that the element (with the same class) exists on the current page, but also in two other pages. Anytime you make changes to the style of one object any other instances of that object sharing the class of “ABH Title” will receive the changes as well

Hover over the blue class label and hit duplicate class and then give it a new name. This should slow you to make changes to only that particular instance.

Explanation Video

Hope this makes sense!

–Austin

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Thank you - that makes sense! That was one of the first elements I named before I understood classes and combo classes.

Got it - thanks for your help! :smile:

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Of course! If you need further clarification on how classes work inside of Webflow. I recommend that you check out this article from Webflow University: Classes | Webflow University

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Thanks - yes I’ve hungrily digested those. They’re all great.

I’m thinking that a duplicate of a page isn’t the best way to experiment – because it will always be riddled with classes, and that instead I should save a preview to try out new tweaks on that until I’m sure of the change I want.

Thanks again.

@paultom, You could also duplicate the entire Webflow project from your Account Dashboard to try out changes before implementing on your main project. Which ever works better for your workflow!

https://cl.ly/2e8830306799

You could always create combo classes as well.

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Good Day

I have a problem with my inner Services and Blog Pages. If I edit one page all the pages change. I have tried adding new fields to the CMS but it doesn’t work. I also tried removing the class but still copying to the rest of the pages. Please can you help me?

I tried watching the video you loaded but it doesn’t work

Thank you