How to change text and images on a website without touching code
Open the page in a visual editor, click the text to retype it and click a photo to swap it, and the editor rewrites the code for you. Then export the updated page and upload it to your hosting, or send it to whoever looks after your site.
First: what kind of website do you have?
The right way to edit depends on how the site was made.
- You log in somewhere to manage it (WordPress, Wix, Squarespace, Shopify, Webflow): use that platform’s own editor. This guide won’t help you there.
- Your designer sent you an edit link: use that. It was set up for exactly this, usually with only the safe parts unlocked.
- Your site is a set of files made by a designer, an AI tool or yourself, with pages ending in
.html: read on.
Step by step
The example uses the free ProofCloud editor, which runs in your browser.
- 1
Get the page’s file
Download it from your hosting’s file manager (look in a folder such as
public_htmlorwww), over FTP, or ask your designer for it. The home page is usually calledindex.html. Keep the original as a backup. - 2
Open it in the editor
Go to the free editor and click Choose HTML file, or drag the file onto the page.
- 3
Change the text
Click a headline, paragraph or button and type. To make a few words bold or italic, select them and use the B or I button in the side panel.
- 4
Swap a photo
Click the photo, then Replace photo… and choose the new image. It fills exactly the same space, trimmed to fit rather than stretched, so pick a photo with a similar shape (landscape for landscape) and the important part in the middle.
- 5
Look it over
Scroll through the whole page. If something went wrong, Undo takes you back a step at a time.
- 6
Export and upload
Click Export HTML, rename the downloaded file to the original name and upload it to your hosting, replacing the old file. Refresh your site to see the change.
What to watch out for
A headline that’s twice as long may wrap onto extra lines and push everything below it down. After exporting, open the file in your browser and make the window narrow to see how it looks on a phone.
The new photo is saved inside the HTML file. A photo straight from a phone can be several megabytes and slow the page down, so resize it before you insert it.
If the page loads pictures from a folder next to it (like images/), the editor can’t see that folder. They’ll show again once the exported file is back on your hosting.
A phone number in the footer of five pages is in five files. Edit each one, or it’ll be out of date somewhere.
When to ask a developer instead
Changing words, photos, colors and links is safe to do yourself. Adding a new page, a new kind of section or a feature such as a booking form means writing new code, so that’s a job for whoever built the site.
The editor is free, runs in your browser and needs no account. Nothing is uploaded.