Haven’t seen a wordpress.com hosted site in a long time, but according to this article here: https://www.wpsupportspecialists.com/find-out-if-you-use-wordpress-com-or-wordpress-org/ you can see the difference via the logo in the top left.
Furthermore you can also log in to https://wordpress.com and see there via “My Website” on the top right if you have websites there and which ones.
Also you can contact the support for further questions: https://wordpress.com/support/
The fact that you don’t see a “Live Preview” should already indicate a hosting at wordpress.COM. Because with the downloadable software this button is always present.
Is there a definitive way to tell what my site is?
One definitive way is to simply follow the money 😀
If the site in question uses your own domain like example.com… and not something like example.wordpress.com… then you must be paying WordPress.com if indeed your site is hosted with them, as free users on their platform cannot use custom domains.
So, are you paying WordPress.com?
And if the site in question is the one in your profile, then the site is definitely hosted with Bluehost: it’s merely using the JetPack plugin to have single-sign-on with WordPress.com… and I would run away if your host’s “tech” support cannot even identify a site they host 😂
Thank you both for the feedback! Following the link to the WP article above, I am definitely self-hosted thru Bluehost, so my site (https://awordsmithservices.com) must be WordPress.org. I confirmed it by looking at my Dashboard, as the drop-down in the upper-left ‘W’ icon has WordPress.org. And yes, that means the Bluehost techie did not know what she was talking about. 🙁
Threadi did mention, however, if I don’t see the Live Preview button once a theme is installed, then my site is a WordPress.com hosted site but that doesn’t seem to be true. Which leaves me back where I started in terms of not being able to preview my site content in a theme before I activate the theme.
The reason this is so crucial for me right now is that the themes I am picking don’t seem to go the full width of the screen. The header and footer might go across but the content/body area seem to only go across 2/3 of the page.
The Live Preview button is actually always present in local installations. I don’t know what resolution your tablet has. You might have to tap the theme first to open the details – then the button would be visible there at the bottom.
The width of the content of a theme can often also be set on the theme or in the content entry itself. So you should not rely 100% on a preview but just install a theme, what you otherwise like, and see what you can set there.