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University Communications and Marketing
Web Documentation

Block Patterns

Save a block, or group of blocks, to use later in any post or page on your site.

When building a website with WordPress, content maintainers may often find themselves adding the same content or block layout across numerous pages or posts. The block pattern feature within the Gutenberg block editor can save time by saving a block, or numerous blocks, and its contents into a replicable format that can be used on any page or post.

Creating a Pattern

Make a block or several blocks into a pattern by following the steps below:

  1. While editing a page or post, select a block. If you would like to make several blocks into a pattern, select all of those blocks at once.
  2. Click on the three dots that appear in the toolbar.
  3. Click on “Create pattern”.
  4. Name your pattern. Adding it to a category is optional.
  5. Decide on sycning
    • Synced pattern: Changes made to the pattern update everywhere it’s used on your website. Great for important information or calls to action that you need to be consistent across your website.
    • Non-synced pattern: Inserting it on other pages copies the block into your page independently. Edits only affect that one instance. Great for reusable layouts you want to customize per page.
  6. Click “Add”.

Adding a Pattern to a Page or Post

After a pattern has been made, content maintainers can add it to any page or post like any other block.

  1. Click the blue plus sign (+) in the top left corner of the page.
  2. Click the “Patterns” tab to the right of the “Blocks” tab.
  3. Find your pattern by search or looking for it by category.
  4. Click the pattern, which will add it to your page.

Updating a Pattern

Non-synced patterns are updated indivdually on each page where they appear. For synced patterns, there are two ways to update them:

From the Page/Post Editor

  1. Find any instance of the pattern on your page.
  2. Click the pattern block, then click Edit original.
  3. Make your changes and click Save.
  4. Click “Back” to the right of the pattern title in the top center of the page to return to the page you were editing

From the Dashboard

  1. Go to Appearance > Design > Patterns.
  2. Find and click the pattern you want to edit.
  3. Make your changes and click Save.

Video Tutorial

WordPress has also developed a useful video tutorial for content maintainers to help them get started.

Need Help?

Still unsure about about block patterns? Feel free to reach out with any questions or concerns at go.ncsu.edu/ucomm-dev-request.