Adding editors to your site

In Squarespace 5, you can give people editorial privileges on your site.

• Editors can create and publish their own content for your site as well as approve and publish blog posts made by limited editors.
• Limited editors can create blog post drafts and modify their own blog posts. You can choose whether they can publish their own posts.

Note: You can only have site editors on the Unlimited billing plan.

There are a few steps to setting up an editor account: creating an audience, adjusting its permissions, and assigning members to the audience. This guide explains the process.

Step 1 - Set up the audience for your editors

Audiences are groups of members on your site. You'll add and edit their permissions in Member Permissions.

1. Use the Website Management bar to access Member Permissions in the Members & Access section.
2. If you only have The Public audience or don't want to change any of your existing audiences, add a new one by clicking Add New Audience. For help, visit Adding and editing audiences.
3. Set the permissions for the audience by choosing Editor or Limited Editor for each page you want that audience to be able to adjust.
4. Click Update Permissions.

Step 2 - Assign members to that audience

1. Use the Website Management bar to access Member Accounts in the Members & Access section.
2. Use the drop-downs in the Audience column to add any existing accounts you'd like to the audience you just created.
3. Click Create Account to add new members. For help, visit Creating member accounts.

When a member account is assigned to an audience set to Editor or Limited Editor for one or more pages or widgets, an editor flag displays next to the account name.

Editors vs limited editors

You can set any page to either editor or limited editor for each audience. This means that an audience can have limited editorial privileges for some pages, and full editorial privileges for others. 

Editors

Editors can add or adjust the content for any page or sidebar widget they've been given access to. They can also publish blog post drafts created by limited editors.  

Editors can't:

• Add slideshows
• Access the Website Management bar or any of its administration areas 
• Make structure or style changes
• Change headers or footers
• See disabled pages or widgets

Limited editors

Limited editors can only edit Journal pages. If you select Limited Editor for any page type other than a Journal page, it's the same as selecting Visible. 

By default, posts created by limited editors are saved as draft. They must be published by a full editor or the site owner. Limited editors can modify any post they created, even after it's published.

To allow limited editors to publish their own posts directly:

1. In Member Permissions, click Edit above the audience.
2. Check Allow Limited Editor Publishing.

Publishing a limited editor's draft

With the default settings, limited editors can't publish blog posts directly. Instead, their posts save as drafts, which can't be seen by the public.

Full editors or the site owner can publish the draft. To do so, click Modify on the blog post draft. In the WYSIWYG that opens, check Published. Then click Save & Close. 

Note: You can allow limited editors to publish their own posts.

Link to author profiles

To link to the author profile for any member account:

1. Add the name as text, for example on an HTML page.
2. Highlight the name, then click the link icon.
3. In the Direct URL tab, in the Link Location (URL) field, type /member/ followed by the member's login name. You can find the account names in the Login column of Member Accounts. 
4. Click Save.

Tip: If the member's login name changes, you'll need to update the author profile link manually.

When visitors click the link, they'll see the author profile for that member:

Squarespace 7 comparison

Our latest platform, Squarespace 7, handles permissions differently from Squarespace 5. Squarespace 7 permissions are primarily used to allow contributors to help edit and manage your site. With Squarespace 7, you can:

• Add a site-wide password
• Add a page-specific password to any page
• Invite contributors to your site and control what they can access and edit

Depending on their permissions, contributors can edit pages, moderate comments, view your site metrics, access your billing information, and more. You can also restrict them from settings they shouldn't see. To learn more, visit Squarespace permissions explained.

You can also add Member Areas to your site to create exclusive content that's only visible to visitors who sign up for a membership. To learn more, visit Getting started with Member Areas.