Revert A Page / Post To Draft Status

Sometimes, we need to remove a page or post from a blog - but prefer to not delete it.

There are various reasons for not wanting to delete a page / post immediately or permanently - maybe when removing a post for problem diagnosis, or to change the URL to match the publish date. Reverting to draft status is easily reversed, and has no permanent side effects.

When you want to quickly - but not permanently - remove a page or post, you can revert to draft status.

Reverting to draft status is convenient, safe, and simple.

You can revert a page or post using Page / Post Editor, or the Pages / Posts dashboard page.

• Revert, using the Pages / Posts dashboard pages.
• Revert, using the Page Editor / Post Editor.

Revert, using the Pages / Posts dashboard pages.

The Pages / Posts dashboard page is a menu. Simply select one or more pages or posts, then click "Revert to draft". Click on "Yes" to verify. and you're done.

Hit "Revert to draft", after selecting a page or post.



Revert, using the Page Editor / Post Editor.

Any time that you are editing a previously published page or post, click "Revert to draft". And you're done.

Hit "Revert to draft", when in page / post editor.



And when you're done, you're done.

Once a post is newly draft, it's offline. Page / post content in cache on your readers's computers will be readable until it expires. New readers, on the other hand, will see a "404" immediately.

You can recover the post with the URL - or rename to a new URL.

If you revert to draft - then later, re publish without changing the title, you will get the same post, with the same URL, back. If you change the title with the post in draft status, you get the same post content, under a new URL, when you re publish.

If you do the latter by mistake - then discover the mistake later, you can recover the mistake by merging the new and previous URLs. Just add a custom redirect from the new to old URL (or vice versa).

Review / Recover The Draft Inventory, With One Mouse Click

Any time that you need, review the inventory of Draft posts. Just click on "Draft" under "Posts". You can Edit then Publish - or just Publish, immediately.

Check out the current Draft posts complement, from Pages or Posts - Draft. Then recover one or more.

Just select one or more posts, then "Publish".

Or edit a page or post, then Publish.



Either way, you can recover any pages or posts, reverted, easily enough - as long as you revert them, instead of deleting them.

Just understand the possibilities.

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Reverting a #Blogger blog post to draft status is a quick, yet reversible, way to take a post offline. The URL will be recovered, automatically - as long as you do not change the title.

Post Editor Generates An Extra Post?

Recently, we have some blog owners observing that use of Post Editor leads to generation of an extra draft post.

If I edit this post, then save my changes, I may see an empty post when I hit "Close".

So, we will see. I will next Save this post, as is.

Here's this post, initially created.

And this post, being Edited.



Having added the above screen prints, I'll Save again.

And if I Save, then Close, I see an empty post.



The "empty" post, shown above, is normal for this blog - which uses dashboard "post template" content in new posts.

If I were to Save this new post, I would end up with an extra draft post. Since I don't care to Save, I will simply hit Close.

And when I Edit, then Save, there's the bogey, again.

This time, I Save - or wait until AutoSave kicks in.

And look at my Posts display.



And hitting Publish, I get another.

Here we see possibility for real confusion.



Be careful, and think - if this happens to you!

If you Save instinctively - or if you hesitate, and AutoSave activates, you end up with an extra draft post.

Be really careful, now!

The bogey is an "empty" post (with "post template" content).

Even with the bogey being "empty", look at the Posts list! If you Edit your post later, always make sure that you Edit the right post - with your updated content!!



If you end up with an extra draft post, be very careful to Delete or Edit the right post. Think carefully, before you continue!

Anyway, this problem is in the hands of Blogger Engineering.

Just don't Save - hit Close, immediately - and you'll see no long term weirdness. Until you Edit, again, of course.

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This weekend, we see #Blogger Post Editor adding an extra post, when we Edit then Save a draft post. If you Close the unwanted post immediately, you'll see no lasting effects, however.

Change A Post To Draft, To Change The Post URL

Long ago, a renamed blog post would automatically receive a new URL, to match a change in date or title.

Blog owners would happily rename posts - and see a new URL, with no problem. Those blog owners who monitored search engine activity, however, later became concerned by the "404"s, shown in the search engine activity logs, in Webmaster Tools - or from various test searches.

Blogger later gave us dashboard and post editor options, to let us intentionally change a post URL, when necessary - and stopped allowing incidental changes to the date or URL, when editing post content.

Settings - Search preferences has the "Custom Page Not Found" and "Custom Redirects" wizards, for dealing with existing posts with changed URLs - and the Post Editor "Post settings" has the "Permalink" wizard, to change URLs of new posts.

This gives blog owners the ability to Edit and Publish posts, and to adjust URLs, independently - and makes it harder for owners to accidentally generate "404"s with existing posts.

You can change a post to Draft status, to change the date or URL.

Recently, people discovered that changing a Published post, to Draft status, would reset a post. A Published post, changed to Draft, and later Published again, would act as a new post would have, when Published.

Blog owners wishing to change the URL of an existing post would change a post back to Draft status, change the Date and / or Title, then Republish - and the post would have a new URL to match the new Date / Title.

This worked great - for owners intentionally wanting a new URL for their renamed posts.

You can also publish a post to Draft, to re use the URL of that post.

If you delete a post, then publish a new post with that same title, you will get a post with a URL containing a duplication prevention suffix - because deletion of a post does not let you re use a URL. If you publish a post to Draft, that resets the URL - and lets you publish a new post to that same URL.

Saving a post as Draft, to edit, can allow URL change - and cause broken links.

Some blog owners use Draft status, for previously Published posts, differently

You can take a published post offline, as a Draft post - then change the Title, and various other settings. This will not change the URL - unless you also change the Permalink, before you Publish.

If you do change the URL, be mindful of the links that may refer to the old URL.

If you want the URL to change, you will have to change the permalink.

While the post is in Draft status, find "Permalink" in "Post settings", in the right sidebar of post editor. Select "Custom Permalink", and change the title section of the post URL. Then select "Done".

Note you will only be able to change the title section of the permalink. You can't change the year, month, or extension ("html") any more.

If I wanted to, I could rename this post, when in Draft status.

Change Posts To Draft, To Change The Post URLs

I could change the post URL, to match.

change-posts-to-draft-to-change-post-urls

The most obvious change that I could get, then would be

http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/2015/01/change-posts-to-draft-to-change-post-urls.html

Fix broken links, by adding a custom redirect.

We can use the same tools to correct mistakes, as we can to make changes.

If you change the URL - and cause broken links, and / or "404" entries in Search Console / Webmaster Tools, when re Publishing a Draft post, just add a Custom redirect from the old URL, to the new URL. One new redirect takes but a few seconds to add - and will keep your readers, the search engines, and you happier.

Change The Sequence Of Your Posts

If there's one question, seen occasionally in Blogger Help Forum: Learn More About Blogger?, that confounds me, its a simple one.

How do I change the order of my posts?

or

Why does my blog display the newest post first? Where is the option, to change to oldest post first?

It is very difficult to respond both correctly, and helpfully, to both questions, equally well.

Blogger does not provide a dashboard setting, to change the post display sequence. Post sequence is only changed, by altering the date and time of the posts.

Long ago, changing the post sequence was simple.

Change the date and time of each post.

You could use the Schedule wizard in Post Editor "Post settings", select "Set date and time", and change each post, to whatever value you require. Each changed post would have a new URL - and would display according to the new URL.

To prevent various problems, caused by uncontrolled date / time changes, Blogger later changed the post editor. Now, once a post is published, you can't back date the post date or time.

The key word there is "published". You can't back date a published post - but you can re publish a post, by saving it as Draft. Just un publish each post as Draft - then use "Set date and time", back date, and Publish again.

You can back date as far as 1970. If you need the blog to display dates preceding 1970, you'll have to use "fake" dates, as you back date.

You can use the Posts menu to set up to 50 posts, in one step, as Draft. You will have to use Post Editor, one post at a time, to back date and re publish, however. This will be some tedium, for you.

Now, be careful here! If you resequence the posts after they have been indexed by the search engines - and if the resequencing involves URL changes - you're going to have "404"s from broken links. This is going to hurt reader and search engine reputation.

If your resequencing involves URL changes - and you care about the reputation of the blog - plan to add a custom redirect, for each post that gets a new URL, pointing from the old URL to the new URL. And this will be more tedium, for you.

But at least there is an answer to

Where is the option, to change to oldest post first?

The answer simply involves some repetitive work, on your part.

AutoSave, And Draft Mode Post Editor

Recently, we've been seeing a few reports, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue, suggesting more problems with Post Editor, in Draft mode.

I keep getting an error, when editing my posts.

An error occurred while trying to save or publish your post. Please try again.

I am editing Draft posts, some of which are fairly large.

This blog owner is discussing yet another facet of the Post Editor feature, AutoSave.

Early AutoSave Experience

Long ago, people would report a different problem, when composing posts.

When I compose my post, my typing is way ahead of what is displayed.

Blog owners, long ago, discovered that AutoSave, which applied to posts being composed before publishing, made their computers slow down. This made their on screen post content show noticeable delay, from their typing.

With newer and more powerful computers, and people who still type at the same speed, Post Editor slow down has become a thing of the past - but at a price.

With highway traffic engineering, a well known problem involves the regional effects of upgrading a local arterial street, to handle more traffic. This might improve traffic in your neighbourhood, but at the expense of another highway in the next city.

Similarly, upgrading the speed of your computer improves your Post Editor typing problem, but puts more load on the networks and Blogger servers. Thus we see the symptom, reported above.

An error occurred while trying to save or publish your post. Please try again.

Pre AutoSave Experience

As you compose a post, what you type is saved on your computer - and displayed in Post Editor. This lets you see what you are typing, in a "what you see is what you get" display. If you hit "Save", periodically, what you have typed gets saved to the Blogger servers.

Originally, many blog authors did not think to Save, when composing a post. Some would just type - then eventually Publish, when convenient. This technique created two problems.

1. The longer an author waited before Publishing, or Saving, the greater the chance that something would happen with the computer being used, causing loss of what was being typed. And the greater the catatrophe from the loss.
2. The longer the author waited before Publishing or Saving, the more work would be done by the Blogger servers, when the author finally did Save, then Publish.

Blogger added AutoSave to Post Editor, so the effects of Publishing massive amounts of unsaved post content would not affect Blogger resources so abruptly - and so less people would see their hard effort go down the drain.

Current AutoSave Experience

One known problem with AutoSave is that it generates load on the local computer, on the networks connecting to Blogger, and on the Blogger networks and servers - thus the slow typing problem, long ago.

Another problem is that it saves automatically (hence the name) - and for some people, who may have just cleared the contents of a post, AutoSave saving an empty post tends to cause a problem. The longer people work on pages or posts, without publishing, the greater the chance that this disaster may happen.

Unfortunately, having a more stable publishing process, thanks to the reverse effect of AutoSave, will just encourage people to take longer before Publishing or Saving. Thus the complaint.

I was working on my new post for weeks. Right in the middle of highlighting a section for deletion, AutoSave kicked in, highlighted the whole post, deleted the highlighted section, and saved an empty post. How do I get my post back?

And for this unhappy author, there can be no helpful answer.

Future AutoSave Prognoses

For a while, I've been suggesting that when possible, you should publish a post immediately, then continue editing your post after publishing - since AutoSave only affects post editing, before the initial Publish. Recently, I discovered that it may be possible to use Google Docs as a Content Management System, for long term post development.

A third possibility is that you compose your unpublished posts in HTML mode, instead of Compose mode. The effects of AutoSave, in HTML mode, are not as objectionable. Some of my posts, I might develop for a week or two before Publishing, using HTML mode. If you use this technique, and you include anchor links in your posts, beware of switching back and forth between Compose and HTML.

A fourth alternative, use of Microsoft Word instead of Google Docs, is known to cause problems with auto pagination and with various posts newsfeed accessories. We do not recommend use of Microsoft Word.

However you develop a post, the longer you wait before Publishing, the greater the chance that AutoSave will make you unhappy - either by sudden destruction of your post - or by contributing to the latest symptom.

An error occurred while trying to save or publish your post. Please try again.

Publish sooner, develop offline, or become a victim.

Use Google Drive For Team Document Development

Ever since AutoSave was developed, and added to posts being edited, people have been having problems when editing un published posts.

We see periodic cries of anguish, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue.

I had been working on this post, for weeks! Just as I selected a portion to delete, AutoSave kicked in, highlighted the whole post, and saved an empty post!!

and

I was working on this post, along with another member of the team. We keep making changes, and erasing each others changes!!!

Blogger allows long period editing of un published posts - and they provide team blog ownership - but you'll do better to not use either possibility, with any important projects.

I've been warning people, for a long time, that Blogger is not a Content Management System.

Blogger provides neither Draft mode edits, nor team membership, as compared to a CMS. Both Draft editing, and team blog membership, provides potential for loss of content, that only you (the original blog owner) will be able to recover.

AutoSave, And Editing A Draft Post
We've known about AutoSave, and it's ability to destroy carefully edited posts, for years. AutoSave is known for it's tendency to cause the entire post to be highlighted - and, after you just pressed delete, to save a newly deleted, empty post.

If you, as the author, have been working on a post for days - or weeks, and you save an empty post, your work is now gone. And Draft mode provides no consistent ability to recover previous versions of the post.

Team Membership
Team membership provides either authors (who can only edit their own posts), or administrators (who can edit, and destroy, everything). There is no middle ground.

If you want to have people able to collaboratively edit a post, you have to make them all administrators. When you do that, every team members absolutely must be someone whom you can trust.

If one team member takes it upon herself (himself) to take over the blog, and remove the other members (and you), this is a problem that you must handle - since you made the decision to give control of the blog, to that person. Blogger Support cannot get involved, legally, since it is (was) your blog.

And, even if team members play by the rules, two people, editing the same post, can easily interfere with each other. The Blogger post editor provides no ability for two team members to edit the same post, simultaneously.

Use Google Drive For Collaborative, Long Term Editing
Having noted the limitations, Google has provided a solution. Google Drive provides a real, Content Management System approach to long term, group development of documents, with version based recovery.

Just start a document, and invite people to help you edit the document. When the document is ready, embed it into your blog. You, and your team, can work on the document - and your only very trusted blog administrators can work on your blog.

If you don't like the embedding options, you can download the document as Rich Text or Plain Text, then copy the text into a new blog post and format the post as you like. If AutoSave misbehaves, you have the original Drive document, as a backup.

You can keep the blog, and the document, separate. When you embed the document, you can let some people continue to edit, while others can read the blog / document, as developed - and the general public can, as you like, be unable to view either one. And your trusted administrators / webmasters can develop the host blog.

Blogger and Google Drive, together, provide interesting possibilities. Imagine the possibilities. Use Google Drive, For Team Document Development Use Google Drive, To Develop Important And Group Documents Use Google Drive, To Develop Important And Group Documents

The New Blogger GUI, And The Disappearing Drafts List

Right now, a few blog owners who depend upon using the Draft status on posts, and who move posts in and out of Draft status regularly, are noting an oddity in the New GUI Posts menu.

I can't find my Draft posts - there's no menu selection!

Looking at the menu, one sees only "All".

So how do I identify and update my Draft posts?

There are no imported or scheduled posts, in the blog.



Fortunately, this is not hard to remedy. Just pick any one post, currently displayed as "Published".

• Edit that one post, and hit "Revert to draft".
• Edit that one post again, and hit "Update".

And there is that one post, with the others, again published - and the menu now will now have selections for "Draft" and "Published".

This is, unfortunately, a temporary fix - the next time you reload your dashboard, you'll see only "All" again. But, it's easy enough to repeat.

You may see the same behaviour with the "Imported" and "Scheduled" lists.

Also, if there are no "Draft", "Imported" or "Scheduled" posts, the relevant link won't be seen.

What would be the benefit of viewing an empty page, after all?