You’ve got one block exactly right. The spacing, the type, the way it slides in on scroll. Six more need to match it, and until now that meant setting each one by hand.
Now you copy it. Styles, animations or both go onto another block or a whole selection in one paste, across block types, and one undo takes the paste back. It arrived in Nectarblocks 3.4.0 alongside gallery videos and Post Grid upgrades, which the release notes cover.
A paste changes how a block looks and moves. Its text, links and main image or video stay where they were, which is what you’ll want to know before trying it on a page you’ve already finished.
How do you copy one block’s styles onto another?
Three steps, all from the block toolbar:
- Select the block that looks right and open the brush icon in its toolbar, Copy/paste styles and animations.
- Under Copy, choose Styles, Animations, or Styles and animations. A notice confirms it: “Copied Text styles.”
- Select the block you want to change, open the same brush, and choose the item under Paste. It names what you copied, “Text styles” here, so you know what’s about to land before it does.
The same Copy and Paste groups sit in each block’s Options menu, the ⋯, and in List View, which is quicker when the block you want is nested inside a Row. Paste stays greyed out until you’ve copied something, and a block with no animation settings only offers Styles.
How is this different from WordPress’s own Copy styles?
WordPress’s version is limited, and you won’t find it available in the Nectarblocks set at all. So we built our own, and it does a lot more. In our mid-year survey, Copy/Paste Block Styles came second on the feature ballot. Of the 36 of you who voted, 29 picked it, and three of you asked for it before you’d seen it listed.
What else core’s version can’t do:
- It has no animations to copy. Nectarblocks copies Styles, Animations or both, each kept in its own slot.
- It overwrites the target wholesale. Core sets every style the two blocks share to the source’s value, including ones the source never touched, so a paste between different kinds of blocks can wipe a padding you’d set. Nectarblocks carries only what the source changed.
- It needs the system clipboard. Core’s paste reads the clipboard, which takes an https site, a browser that allows it and your permission. Nectarblocks keeps the copy in your browser for the site, with no prompt, on a local http site too.
What does a paste carry?
Styles and Animations are two separate copies, and each carries its own set of settings:
- Styles: backgrounds (color, image, video, shapes and layer order), text color and typography, spacing, size, borders and corner radius, shadows, filters and blend modes, masks, position, transforms, display, overflow and alignment. Each comes with its tablet, mobile and hover values where the block has them.
- Animations: the block’s animations, whether they run on Scroll Into View, Scroll Position or Interaction, plus a background’s Scroll Animation.
Motion that’s part of a block’s look counts as styling. A Ticker’s or Scrolling Marquee’s speed, the Ticker’s slow-down on hover and a Carousel’s slide effects all travel with Styles. Anything driven by scrolling or by the animation settings travels with Animations.
Some things never leave a block, whichever you copy. Its text, links and main image or video stay. So do counts that shape a layout, like a grid’s columns or a Carousel’s slides per view, along with an Image’s focal point and a Testimonial’s star rating.
Does it work between different kinds of blocks?
Yes. What changes is how much comes across.
Between two blocks of the same type, a paste is a full copy. It carries everything above plus that block’s own design settings: a Carousel’s arrows, pagination and scrollbar, a Video Player’s controls, a Testimonial’s quote styling. It also carries the settings the source never changed, so pasting one Button onto another can reset a padding you’d customized on the target.
Between different types, only the settings both blocks share come across, and only the ones the source actually changed. Copy a Text block’s styles onto a Button and the Button keeps its own spacing, padding included, unless you changed the Text block’s. Most of each block’s own extras, like the Carousel’s arrows, stay behind.
Paste onto several blocks at once
Select the blocks first, by shift-clicking them on the page or in List View. If they’re all the same type, paste from the toolbar brush and every block in the selection takes it.
For a mix, say a Text block, a Button and an Image, use the ⋯ Options menu instead. It shows only Paste, since a selection has no single block to copy from, and each block takes whatever it shares with the copy.
Either way the paste is one undo step, and the notice counts the result: “Styles pasted to 3 blocks.” A block that’s locked for editing, like one inside a content-only pattern, is skipped.
Where does the copy go?
Into your browser, for the site you’re working on. Styles and Animations each get a slot of their own, so you can hold one block’s look and another block’s motion at the same time and paste both with Styles and animations.
A copy survives a reload and shows up in the Paste menu on other pages and in other tabs of the same site. It won’t reach another site, another browser or another subsite of a multisite network. If your browser blocks site storage, copying fails with a notice saying so.
When should you use a reusable block instead?
When the block should be the same everywhere it appears, text included. WordPress’s reusable blocks were renamed synced patterns in version 6.3, and editing one changes it on every page that uses it. To make one, select the blocks, choose Create pattern from the ⋯ Options menu and turn on Synced.
A paste is a one-time copy. Nothing links the blocks afterwards, so restyling the source leaves the others as they are, which suits six feature cards that should look alike and say different things. Styling a sign-up box on twenty pages that way means opening all twenty again for every redesign.
What else is in Nectarblocks 3.4.0?
Product videos now play in all four gallery styles of the Nectarblocks theme. The Post Grid can carry categories and tags on one card and gains an Auto item ratio, and WooCommerce’s templates are updated for 11.1. The 3.4.0 release notes have every addition and fix.
How to update
Copy and paste lives in the Nectarblocks plugin, so update the plugin to 3.4.0. If you run the Nectarblocks theme, update it too: it’s also at 3.4.0, and the gallery videos live there.
With your license active, the Authorization tab under Nectarblocks in the admin has an Enable Updates toggle. Turn it on and both updates reach the WordPress Updates screen within four hours, or straight away if you press Check for Updates. Activating your license is its own short lesson.
Requirements haven’t moved: WordPress 6.5 and PHP 8.0, tested up to 7.1.2.
Start with your best block
Pick the block you spent longest on this month. Copy its styles and animations, shift-select the blocks that should look like it, and paste once.
Then open the next page that should match. The copy is still waiting in the Paste menu.
FAQ
Why can’t I paste onto some blocks?
Four Nectarblocks blocks have no styles of their own to copy or receive: Header Account, Megamenu, Nectar Navigation and Post Content. A block that’s locked for editing, like one in a content-only pattern, can’t take a paste either.
Does a paste change the blocks inside a Row or Column?
No. It restyles only the blocks you select, so a Column’s inner blocks keep their own styles. Select them too when they should change.
What happens to an animation’s trigger when I paste it?
It follows the block you paste onto. An Interaction animation that fires on the block itself fires on each target instead, while one wired to another block stays wired to that block. A Scroll Into View stagger across a block’s children only crosses between blocks of the same type, since it names that block’s own children.