Member Avatar for Ilcarriz

Hi everyone!

Thanks for taking the time to read this. I'm new to web design and am using dreamweaver to make a site (apparently that is my first mistake). I made the home page so the layout was exactly like I wanted. As far as I know I did not save it as a template or anything. Then, I duplicated the page and renamed it. Now I have my homepage (index.html) and my second page (about.html). Now, any changes I make on either page appear on the other page. I don't know if this is an issue with the code or just some setting in dreamweaver, but it's driving me up the wall!!

Any suggestions? I'll post the code if you think that's the issue.

Thanks!

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by w33n

Dani AI

Generated

Two things cause the symptom you describe most often: both pages are sharing the same stylesheet or they were created from the same Dreamweaver template/library so edits propagate. and are on the right track — here are concrete, quick checks and fixes you can apply right away.

  1. Verify the files are actually independent. Open both pages in a plain text editor (or Dreamweaver Code view) and compare the source. Use a diff tool (WinMerge, Beyond Compare) if available. If saving one file immediately changes the other on disk, they are not separate files.

  2. Search each file for Dreamweaver template markers. Look for comments like:

    <!-- InstanceBegin template="/Templates/site.dwt" codeOutsideHTMLIsLocked="false" -->
<!-- InstanceBeginEditable name="content" -->
...
<!-- InstanceEndEditable -->

    If you see those, the pages are template instances. To stop automatic propagation either edit the underlying .dwt template (to change all pages) or remove the template link (use Dreamweaver’s Templates menu to detach or create a new stand‑alone page by copying source into a fresh file and removing the template comments).

  3. If no template markers exist, check how styles are applied. Look for a shared external CSS <link> or use Dreamweaver’s CSS Styles panel — it tells you whether a rule lives inline, embedded, or in an external .css file. Changing a rule in an external stylesheet will affect every page that links to it.

If the intent is shared layout with occasional per‑page tweaks, scope rules instead of duplicating styles. Example:

<body class="about">
  ...
</body>
/* site-wide */
h1 { color: black; }

/* page-specific */
.about h1 { color: blue; }

Cautions: detaching a page from a template prevents future template updates from applying to that page, so back up first. Also confirm you’re editing local files (Files panel set to Local) and not a remote copy with caching.

Recommended Answers

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Member Avatar for Troy III

You are using the same CSS in both files I guess. Editing that will affect all pages using it.

Member Avatar for w33n

if you have styles in the html it will affect just that page. What you might want to consider is making a separate CSS page that all your pages refer to.

or...if the styles are embedded in the html are edited, and you make a change w/in that, it shouldn't change both pages. Seems strange.

what sort of changes are you trying to make when it behaves like that?

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