Working with blocks

Updated 2026-08-13

A page is not a document you type into. It is a stack of blocks: a heading is a block, a paragraph is a block, a picture, a table, a whole card.

A block knows what it is, so it can be moved, restyled, translated and reused without anything else on the page having to know about it.

Add, move, remove

Find the block in the palette on the left. The search box beats scrolling.
Click it to drop it at the end of the page, or drag it exactly where you want it.
Grab a block by its handle to move it. Drop it above, below, or beside another.
Select a block and use its toolbar to duplicate or delete it.

Dropping a block on the side of another puts the two next to each other. That is the quickest way to a two-column row.

Everything is undoable with Ctrl+Z, and every save is a version, so the useful way to learn the palette is to drop blocks on a scratch page and look at them.

Blocks inside blocks

Some blocks hold others. A Box is the general one. Columns puts its children side by side. Tabs, accordions and conditionals hold blocks too.

A box is a block that holds other blocks. That is the whole layout system: a box in a column, two boxes side by side, a heading and a picture inside one of them. Nesting is how a page gets its shape.

This is the whole layout system. A card is a box with a background, rounded corners, padding, and a picture and heading inside. There is no separate card concept to learn.

Nesting is also what makes styling economical: set the padding once on the box and everything inside sits in from the edge, instead of nudging four blocks individually.

Finding your way around

Once a page has a few dozen blocks, clicking the right one gets fiddly. Three toolbar aids:

LayersThe page as a tree, nested exactly as it really is. Clicking a row selects that block, which is how you reach one buried three boxes deep.

Block outlinesA hairline around every block, so you can see where one ends and the next begins.

Spacing guidesEach block’s padding and margin, with numbers. The fastest answer to why there is a gap.

Both toggles are on by default and turn off together, so you can look at the design without the scaffolding.

Choosing the right block

For writingHeading and Text. Headings are the page’s structure, which is what a table of contents and a screen reader follow.

For layoutBox and Columns. Reach for a Spacer only when a margin genuinely will not do.

For repeated dataDo not lay it out by hand. A stat table or catalog grid reads a table and stays right when the data changes.

For what is missingAn extension probably has it.

With the blocks in place, the next step is making them look right: Properties.