Hello readers!
Welcome to the WordPress Block Editor: we hate it here. In case you just got it (like me) and have more or less understood how it works but insist on using the Classic block because Who Has the Time, I thought gathering a couple tips that helped me actually almost enjoy (gasp!) using it by now would be a good idea. They’re simple things but maybe you find something that helps!
1) Use a fixed toolbar
If you click on a block and every time it drives you crazy when the toolbar hovers over it, you can fix it to the top instead: click on the “…” on the upper right corner of the screen and select “Top Toolbar” (image on the left). See image on the right on how it will look like. The toolbar will stay fixed on the top of the screen even when you scroll down, so no need to scroll back up to use it!
2) Use keyboard shortcuts
If you hate clicking and searching all the time, you can use a few shortcuts to make your life easier:
- Enter / to search blocks, for example, if I type /image it will show the options below. Click on any of them to add as a new block.

You can see all shortcuts by clicking on the “…” on the upper right corner of the screen next to the green symbol, and then “Keyboard Shortcuts”, or by clicking Shift + Alt + H.

On a similar note, if you want to write a text and add blank lines, but don’t want to create a new paragraph block for every empty line, just use shift + Enter.
3) Create reusable blocks
This is one of the best features in my opinion in the block editor: you can save several blocks together (e.g: I used a star rating block, a few paragraphs and an image and saved them together as “Book Reviews”) and just add them the next time you need them.
First, add all the blocks as if you’re about to actually, say, write a review. Then select all the blocks and then click on the “…” on the Toolbar and then on “Add to Reusable Blocks”:

It should now show as a new block. On the example I mentioned above, I saved the “Book Review” block, which will show up as a block option when I search “/book“, like so:

I like to then convert them to regular blocks again, it makes it easier and more flexible to use (see image below). Otherwise, you can still edit the block for your post, but it will be more cumbersome AND it will change later if you decide to edit your reusable block.

(This is quite well-explained on Webnotes.)
Reusable blocks will be quite useful for any sort of post you have a repeatable template for: book reviews, best-of lists, movie reviews, weekly memes and so on.
I created one for my Weekly and Monthly Wrap Ups as well, which I can find on the Reusable section of the blocks.

You can edit these reusable blocks afterwards as well by going to the Reusable Block Manager:

4) Quickly change to similar blocks
I normally start adding texts and then I’m like huh this should be a header or a list instead of a paragraph, or add an image and change my mind and want to add a gallery instead. You can quickly change the type of block to a similar one on the toolbar (see below examples for paragraph and image).
On a similar note about images, you can also just copy and paste images from your folder or another website instead of uploading and it will automatically be added to your post as an image block plus uploaded to your media library.
You can also group several isolated images into a gallery by simply selecting all the images and then changing type to gallery as shown above!
5) Edit your scheduled tweet
A lot of bloggers like to add emojis, hashtags or tag authors/publishers/other bloggers on their scheduled tweet when the post gets published. To do that, go to Jetpack (the green symbol on the right upper corner of the screen) to see your scheduled tweets, and then you’re free to customize.

6) Play around with blocks
Okay, I’m a tiny bit of a geek but I’ve actually been enjoying playing around with the editor, even if it’s frustrating a lot of times. Some I think will be useful for book bloggers are:
- Star rating: particularly practical for reviews, obviously. AND it has half stars! I’ve noticed tat on my phone the half-stars don’t show and it rounds up (2,5 will show as 3 stars).
- Cover: If you want to add a personalized header to each book review and have no patience/talent for editing images for each post, it’s quite simple to use the Cover block, and looks very pretty! You can move the image up and down to change what part of it shows on the header, change the height of the image, add other blocks to it (like buttons, social media links). Below I added some social media icons as an example. It does not show so well on phones, however!

REVIEW
The Pisces by Melissa Broder
- Social Media Icons: since I mentioned them above, you can add links to your social media and include them in your reusable blocks (lots of bloggers use them on reviews, for example).
- Gifs: it’s quite easy to add gifs. You just add the Gifs block, type a search term (I, predictably, searched for “book” to get the Gif below). I don’t think you can change the size, though, perhaps on the Code Editor, but not on the normal toolbar. It also shows awkwardly on the phone.
- Poll: it’s something I recently tried and actually enjoyed, although most of my polls are normally done on Twitter.
Final thoughts
It seems to me that the Block Editor aims to facilitate the life of visual users who want to perhaps make money out of their blogs (there are payment methods blocks, or that let you schedule appointments and so on), and for the regular lowkey book blogger there are only few useful things. Still, I am enjoying changing up my reviews template and try to decide for a final one.
The main drawbacks I’ve had so far:
- Not intuitive to use for Classic users (for example, you need to know where to find the manager for reusable blocks, which is a bit hidden)
- Not very forgiving of mistakes, especially with images.
- Does not allow for much flexibility when using blocks (for example putting a star rating inside a paragraph doesn’t work. The star rating is its own block and must be in a new line).
- Seemingly random allocation of some features (Twitter sharing is on the green Jetpack thingy?).
- I’d like to see some statistics blocks! Give us the option to make graphs.
- To use your blocks more flexibly you need to know how to code.
- The search function for links does not work reliably – I spent two weeks unable to link anything independently of the browser I used, and then suddenly it was fixed. Probably just a bug.
- I can also not see on the calendar which days I have posts planned. I pre-schedule most of my posts, so this is a nightmare: I have to have a calendar and a separate page with my planned posts on another tab to see when I can schedule my next posts. Before I could see which days I had posts scheduled AND which they were!
Let me know in the comments if you have other tips that could be useful as we try to get better at using the block editor!
This is a very helpful post! Personally, I like to use a few blocks mixed with classic editor (in the block) and manage somehow but it’s always good to know more! Thank you for sharing 🙂
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Yes, the classic is definitely a nice alternative! I hear they will not keep it for too long, though, only a few months more? I’m not sure about this information.
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It took me a while to get used to it, but I think I have the hang of it now! The first few days were so frustrating!
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Yes! I took a few hours to learn to use it when I got it (luckily it was a Sunday), otherwise it would have been even more frustrating!
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I got used to it by playing around trying different blocks. Once we know what each blocks are, I actually like this new feature and change. Great post!
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Thank you! Yes, it does require some getting used to, but I think it’s always annoying to learn something new when book bloggers in particular will probably not use many of the new features.
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Omg you’re a life saver Naty!!! 😂 Thanks so much for sharing these tips with a poor, suffering change-averse book blogger!!! I’ve been just using the classic editor and burying my head in the sand but I might have the confidence now to venture into the unknown…
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My pleasure!! And I think for book bloggers this is even more annoying because it’s not like we will be using a lot of the new features like, who will be putting appointments and three different payment methods on their posts? Not a lot of people, that’s for sure. So it’s a lot of getting used to something new for not much benefit!
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Thank you for sharing! I tried Block for one week and now I’m back to Classic for as long as it’s available! Even though I’m using Classic, I find the new search function tweak/upgrade to link to previous content much better than it was before! And it’s working for me! One of the new changes I actually appreciate! Thanks for the tip about creating a new paragraph within a block…I need to try that Next time I’m brave enough to use Blocks again! When you fix your editing tool bar is it always at the top of the post and do you need to scroll up each time? I thought reusable blocks might work well but then I realized that if you edit it, it will change in every location you’ve used it…..good at times but not always! I guess as a book review blogger I feel it’s a lot of frustration for very little gain. It seems that the big draw to WordPress is that you didn’t need to know coding….but now you do? WP might lose more than a few bloggers!
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Huh, that is interesting to know! I’ve used Google Chrome and Edge and still have issues with the link search function – I’ve just sent an email to their support team because it’s truly annoying & seems to be a my-account-thing instead of a block-editor-thing. About the editing tool bar: It stays fixed on top of the page, so when you scroll down, you can still see it! No need to scroll back up. And yes, the reusable blocks thing changing every post is a bit annoying, but if you click on “convert to normal blocks” whenever you use it, then it’s not a problem anymore. And you’re right, it’s a lot of frustration for not much gain for book bloggers! I guess they’re aiming for professionals setting up their work websites.
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Thanks for the info! I’m using Firefox so that might be the difference?
It seems like they might be losing their original target market if block is now aimed for professionals!
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Thank you for doing this! I’ve had block editor for a long time now. I do so little “fancy” stuff that it hasn’t been so bad. I’m mostly just writing paragraphs and inserting the occaisional picture. I just discovered the GIF feature and it’s a great idea, but, as you pointed out, you can’t resize which is silly. It also doesn’t have that big of a selection
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Thank you! I think it’s possible to change the gif size on the code editor but I haven’t tried yet – but it’s silly that you can’t do that on the block itself.
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Thanks, this is very useful!
And of course I’ll keep asking you to help me fix all my block editor woes 🙂
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Anytime!
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Thank you for sharing these tips! I didn’t know about any of them but plan to use these.
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Such a useful post, thank you! Have gradually got used to block editor after spending hours tearing my hair out the first few times I tried to use it but still very much limited to the basics, so your tips will definitely help! I think the problems searching for previous posts to create links might be a newish bug in the system; I’d had no problems getting up search results until a couple of days ago when suddenly every search came up blank. I meant to contact WordPress support but haven’t got round to it yet!
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This is helpful! I have not branched out at all really in my formatting but perhaps you’ve inspired me!
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Thank you for these! I’ve been trying to get the hang of it.
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Reusable blocks are legit the best thing about the block editor, hands down. Once I got those set up, I really was happy with the change… and I hate change! These tips (toolbar tip OMG) are super useful, thank you!
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Gosh such a helpful post!
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I remember when I took a hiatus from my blog for almost a year, then I returned and the update included this. I about died because I hated it so much. I ended up installing the Classic Editor plugin to go back to the old editor because I was not prepared to learn lol This post will be super helpful for people who want to use the newer editing method!
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This is so awesome I’ve been using part classic and part block when I can’t get a format that I want. The only thing I can’t figure out is how to make images in a row. I’ve been using the classic editor to get the alignment that I want.
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