Block

Have you ever noticed that every paragraph you type in WordPress gets its own little toolbar? That is because each one is a block. A block is nothing but a single unit of content inside the block editor.

Blocks are the building pieces of every modern WordPress post, page and even theme. Once you understand them, the whole editor starts to make sense.

What is a block in WordPress?

Think of blocks as building bricks. A paragraph is one brick, an image is another and a button is a third. You stack them in any order to build your page.

WordPress ships with plenty of core blocks, and the block inserter groups them into categories like these:

• Text: Paragraph, Heading, List, Quote and Table.
• Media: Image, Gallery, Video and Audio.
• Design: Buttons, Columns, Group and Spacer.
• Widgets: Latest Posts, Search, Categories and Shortcode.
• Embeds: YouTube, Vimeo and many other services.

Plugins can add their own blocks too. For example, most contact form plugins give you a block to drop a form anywhere.

How do you work with blocks?

Click any block to select it. A toolbar appears above it with options to move it up or down, change its alignment or transform it into another block type. For example, you can turn a paragraph into a heading in two clicks.

More settings, like colors and font size, sit in the sidebar on the right. You can practice the basics with our lesson on the WordPress Paragraph block.

How are blocks saved?

Behind the scenes, WordPress stores blocks as normal HTML with small comments around them, like <!-- wp:paragraph -->. Because of this, most of your content stays readable even outside the editor.

Some blocks are dynamic. The Latest Posts block, for example, updates itself whenever you publish a new article.

Simply put, blocks make editing flexible and visual. That's it. If you have any doubts about blocks, write them in the comment box below.