---
title: Copying an existing site
description: 'Read this when the owner already has a site and asks you to bring it
  over: match its look, but put its content where the owner can edit it from the dashboard.'
sidebar:
  order: 3
---

Read this when the owner already has a site and asks you to bring it over:
match its look, but put its content where the owner can edit it from the
dashboard. `building` still applies to everything else.

A copy is done when it looks like the original **and** the owner can edit
every article, case study and other repeated item from the dashboard. A
pixel-perfect copy they can't edit has failed, the same as an editable one
that looks nothing like the original.

## Anything the site repeats is a table

Articles, case studies, projects, services, team members, testimonials and
prices are each a list of items with the same shape. Each kind is one table,
and each item is one row. Articles use the reserved `posts` table, so the owner
edits them in Posts. Case studies and projects use the reserved `portfolio`
table, so the owner edits them in Portfolio, with a cover, drafts and an
order of their own (`vzk/tables`, "Portfolio"). Every other kind gets a
table of its own (`create_table`), edited from its table screen.

- **One item is one row.** Its words, its long text and its pictures are the
  row's values, never a page of its own or text typed into a page, a layout
  or a component. Long text goes in as Markdown (`vzk/tables`, "Writing a
  post body").
- **Anything an item carries is a field on its table.** A summary, a category,
  a card picture, a price or a place in the order gets a field
  (`update_table` adds one later), read as `record.summary` on the table
  page and `item.summary` in a listing. Order by a `sortable` field with
  `sortBy` rather than by where rows happen to sit. A portfolio already
  keeps a `summary`, a `cover` and a `position`, and lists in the owner's
  order when a page names none, so a case study's metrics, client or
  year are the fields to add.
- **One table page renders every row** of a kind that has pages of its own,
  reading `record`. A component holds reusable presentation, never one item's
  content.
- **Every listing reads the table.** The home page, the listing page and any
  other page that shows an item loop over `tables.<name>` and read the same
  fields. A summary is written once, on the row, never retyped into another
  page's fields.
- **A very long article is split into several posts**, because a body has a
  size ceiling (`vzk/tables`).

## Pages the owner can find their way around

- **Name every page field for what it holds and where it shows**
  (`hero.title`, `pricing.note`), and every dictionary key for its phrase
  (`nav_contact`), with one key per phrase (`vzk/pages`, "Naming
  fields"; `vzk/languages`). A field named by a counter is editable but
  impossible to find.
- **A policy, terms or a long story is one Markdown field**, not a field per
  paragraph (`vzk/pages`, "Long text").

## Bring the tokens, not the built CSS

Copy the old site's colours, fonts and spacing into `@theme`, and its
recurring pieces into component classes (`vzk/styling`). Never paste
its built stylesheet: a write of it is refused, and the compiler
already makes every utility the pages use.

## Try the platform before a workaround

Draft the design with Markdown bodies and structured fields first. Reach for a
workaround only once a draft shows they cannot match it, and file that gap
with `request_feature` so the platform can close it.

## Check before merging

For each table you made, edit one row's title, body and each other field
you added on its screen (or with `update_record`) and look at the preview:
the row's page and every listing that shows it change, because all of them
read the row. A preview shows draft posts and portfolio items too. If any still shows the old
words, text was copied into a page, a layout or a component, and it has to
move into the row. Put the edits back afterwards.

Once content has moved into a table, delete the pages and components that
held it.