Articles and Tutorials > cPanel Edit Files

Do you just want to make a small change?

The wording is not quite right

There you are. You call up your Web site, and on one page it says “cheaper than the competition.” You now want it to say, “much cheaper than the competition.” Or it says, “until June 2009.” You want to change it to “until December 2009.” What do you do? Call up your website designer (who might be me)? Download the page, edit it, and put it back up again? There's no need for any of this.

cPanel to the rescue

You can use cPanel's File Manager. If you're not sure how to call up the cPanel File Manager, start with my previous tutorial. This explains how to access this powerful tool, and how to get to the folders in which you can see your files.

I can see the page I want to edit. What do I do now?

OK. You're in your public_html folder, or in one of its sub-folders.

1. Click on the file, or on its icon. (Unlike folder icons, file icons have no special properties of their own.) Options will appear in the top right area of the screen, which was previously blank.
2. Click on the option Edit file. The file will open in a new window or new tab. It will be a plain text file.
3. Find the words and phrases you want to change, and change them.
4. At the bottom of the file window there is an option to save the file under another name. Leave the file name as it is. Click on the button labeled Save.

That's it. For small but important changes it's just about perfect.

A word of warning

If you make substantial changes to your words, you may destroy the look of your page. An image in another column may no longer align with a header in this column. Or the baselines of two paragraphs may no longer match. Your Web page may look ragged and amateurish. Take care that this doesn't happen.

I see an option Html Editor. Should I use this?

You can use it if you wish. This opens up the WysiwygPro editor, which has a design view, so you can see what changes will look like on your Web page: but be warned. It destroys any formatting there may have been in your original source file. Speaking for myself, I would hate anyone to do this to an HTML file I had myself written, and carefully spaced out…

Next time in this cPanel beginners’ guide: create your own error pages

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