Questions about developing a test site on localhost

Hello everyone,

I have a few questions about developing and testing my website via localhost. I have downloaded WordPress onto my computer and setup everything so that I can view the site using ‘https://localhost’ and all that, but I have some more general questions that need to be answered.

1) The new website on my computer is just a blank website (as you probably know) with an empty database. How can make the test website on my computer look exactly my live site (database and all)? If someone could walk me through the steps to do this, that would be wonderful.

2) Once they look exactly alike, I want to start messing with it (I just purchased Thesis and want to do some stuff). When I am finished editing it and changing it, how would I go about implementing the test site into my live site? If someone could walk me through that process as well, it would be greatly appreciated.

3) Will link structures be messed up when transferring from localhost to a live site?

I believe that’s all the questions I have for now. Thanks again for the all the help!