What is Gutenberg?

[wp101 video=”what-is-gutenberg”]

In this video, we’ll take a quick look at the Block Editor in WordPress, also known by its nickname: Gutenberg.

The Block Editor is a modern way to create nearly any type of page layout you can imagine. Instead of one long text field, every piece of content—whether it’s a paragraph, image, video, or button—is a block.

All available blocks live in the Block Library, which you can access by clicking the block inserter icon. Each block has its own settings for things like color, width, and alignment, which appear automatically whenever that block is selected.

By default, WordPress comes with dozens of blocks:

• Text-based blocks like paragraphs, headings, and quotes.
• Media blocks for images, galleries, cover images, video, or audio.
• Layout blocks like columns, lists, buttons, and more.

On top of that, hundreds of additional blocks are available from third-party developers. This makes it possible to design custom layouts—almost like snapping together Lego pieces—without needing to be a developer or designer.

Over the next few videos, we’ll dive deeper into the editor and show you how to work with these blocks in detail. But as you can see, the block-based system opens up endless creative possibilities for building your site.

Prefer the older editor? No problem. If you’d rather stick with the classic WordPress editor, you can install the Classic Editor plugin.

• From the main navigation menu, go to Plugins → Add New.
• Search for “Classic Editor,” click Install Now, and then Activate.

That’s it—your editing screen will return to the familiar pre-Gutenberg layout. WordPress has committed to supporting the Classic Editor at least through 2022, but we recommend giving Gutenberg a try.

In fact, you can test it out risk-free at wordpress.org/gutenberg. This live demo lets you experiment with blocks before using them on your own site.

When you’re ready to switch back, simply deactivate the Classic Editor plugin, and you’ll be set.

Now that you know what Gutenberg is, in the next video we’ll explore how to use the Block Editor step-by-step to create beautiful pages and posts in WordPress.