--- title: "Sitecore Experience Editor Overview" description: "The Sitecore Experience Editor is the WYSIWYG authoring tool for content teams. TechGuilds gives an overview of its features and how to use it effectively." canonical: "https://www.techguilds.com/blog/sitecore-experience-editor-overview/" type: "BlogPosting" author: "Hector Chen" publishedAt: "2020-08-07T04:00:00.000Z" updatedAt: "2026-08-11T18:59:29Z" source: "https://www.techguilds.com/llms.txt" --- # Sitecore Experience Editor Overview This post is an overview of the Experience Editor, Sitecore's WYSIWYG editor that allows you to easily make changes to items directly on the page. Whether you're here because you're new to Sitecore and you want to learn about this invaluable tool, or you've used it for sometime but want to strengthen your foundational knowledge of it and uncover any hidden gems that you didn't know about, you've come to the right place! The Experience Editor is accessible from Sitecore Launchpad and you will see the front view of your website's homepage just like a visitor would. From there, you can see the many editable elements, which are circled: the title of your banner, the image of a call to action, the text and URL of a hyperlink, etc. "You can edit all the items that are visible on the page — text, graphics, logos, links, and so on." [A quote from Sitecore documentation](https://doc.sitecore.com/users/93/sitecore-experience-platform/en/the-experience-editor.html). [Image: Experience Editor] In this post, I'll focus on two areas of the Experience Editor: ## 1. The ribbon in the Experience Editor The ribbon is located at the top of the page and consists of tabs and different commands under each. The view and functionality of the ribbon depending on your security roles and the customizations of your website. In other words, you'll see different tabs from what another user with different security roles might see. The ribbon can be customized as needed by a Sitecore Admin. Sometimes the ribbon is minimized so that you can have a broader view of your page and you can expand it to start editing the page. On the top the ribbon, you will find: 1. Save button - to save changes made on the page 2. Search button - to search for other items that are stored in Sitecore's content tree 3. Add a new component button - to add more components to the page  4. Tabs of different commands that help you edit your page [Image: Experience Editor Tabs] Let's go through the default tabs one by one to understand them better. ### Home [Image: Experience Editor Home Tab] In this tab, you can: - Choose the viewing mode - Add a new component to the page - Insert a new sub-page under the current page in Sitecore content tree - Remove the current page - Move the current page to a different location in Sitecore content tree - Update the name/display name of your page - Lock/Unlock to edit the page - View items locked by you - Open the Sitecore Workbox - If your Sitecore implementation supports tagging, you can update the tags here - Publish your page or modify the publishing configuration - Run and check the markup and any validation commands that you have on the page ### Presentation [Image: Experience Editor Presentation Tab] In this tab, you can: - Choose the viewing mode - View the layout of the page - Open up the Details modal and see more information of your set layout - Reset the layout - Set an Alias for your page - See any associated items to the page ### Experience [Image: Experience Editor Experience Tab] In this tab, you can: - Choose the viewing mode - Use Sitecore "time machine" to view any content as it appeared/will appear in the past or future on your page - Change the view to any supported devices (e.g. mobile, tablet, widescreen monitor, etc.) ### Versions [Image: Experience Editor Versions Tab] In this tab, you can: - Choose the viewing mode - Reset a field to its default value - Switch to another version of the page - Remove the current version - Add another version (duplicate) of the version that you are viewing - Compare two versions - Switch to another language version of your page ### Optimization [Image: Experience Editor Optimization Tab] In this tab, you can: - Choose the viewing mode - See whether your page has any personalization set up - View the performance of tests that are active and complete on the page - See testing and personalization suggestions - Create a test - View and associate any profile, goal and marketing attributes to viewing the page ### View [Image: Experience Editor View Tab] In this tab, you can: - Choose the viewing mode - Toggle viewing elements on the page to help you edit better ### Extras [Image: Experience Editor Extra] When the Ribbon/View/Navigation bar checkbox is checked, you are able to use this bar to navigation to the page in a tree structure. If you've edited the page, added personalization rules to components, or created variants of one or more components, Sitecore will suggest you run a test and see which variant provides better performance, engagement value. ## 2. Edit View in Experience Editor [Image: Experience Editor View as End-user] This is the part that is below the ribbon, where you can view your page as an end-user does. With the proper checkbox under Ribbon/View tab checked, you are able to see the editable fields circled with dots, personalized component highlighted, validated fields indicated, etc. And when you click any component, you can see a Component Edit modal with more functions to use: [Image: Experience Editor Component Edit] - Move the component to another location on the page - Set up personalization for the component - Start a test - Remove the component - Change the component's content item/data source - Edit the related item - Check the current state of the component in its workflow - See how many places the component's content item/data source is being used - View the component in a tree structure of your page - Edit component properties - Change the Experience Editor options ### Surprise Have you ever tried clicking the burger menu button on the top right corner of the ribbon of the Experience Editor? If you have not and don't know what it does, why not give it a try now!