Add and style your website's copy.

Text blocks are the primary means of adding text to your site. You can also use text blocks to add headings, links, lists, quotes, and preformatted text.

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Before you begin

• Use text blocks to add text in content areas on your site. Other areas of your site may use different methods for adding text. For a list of where you can and can’t add text blocks, visit Adding content with blocks.
• Only site owners and contributors with certain permissions can enter text in text blocks. To add text fields that your visitors can complete and send to you, use form blocks.
• You can generate first draft text content for your site with Squarespace AI. To learn more, visit Using Squarespace AI.

Limitations

• Text blocks don't have a built-in tool for underlining text.
• Text blocks don’t support scripts or text written Right-to-Left (RTL).
• Special characters may cause formatting issues in text blocks.

Add a text block

A placeholder text block appears automatically in empty content areas when you click Edit.

To add a new text block:

1. Edit a page or post, click Add Block or an insert point, then select Text. For help, visit Adding content with blocks.
2. Click into the text block to add text. Press Enter to create a new paragraph.
3. Click Save to save your changes.

Keep in mind:

• If you're pasting text from another source, paste it as plain text. This action removes formatting that can interfere with how your text displays. For preparing text outside Squarespace, consider using a plain text editor such as Notepad for Windows or TextEdit for Mac.
• To troubleshoot text you've already pasted, use the text toolbar to remove formatting. For more tips, visit Fixing text formatting.
• For less space between lines, on a computer, add a line break by pressing Shift+Enter. If formatting issues appear when creating line breaks, visit Fixing text formatting.

Format and style text

To format or style text, use your mouse to highlight text. Then, click the icons in the text toolbar.

• To learn about the text toolbar and your formatting options, visit Formatting text.
• To learn about changing fonts, colors, and text size, visit Styling text.

Style the text block

Further customize your text block by adding a background color and other style elements:

1. Click the text block, then click the style background icon to open the Style background panel. 
2. To enable a background, switch the toggle on next to Background. Choose the Color, set the Corner radius, and change the Padding.
3. Beside Stroke, enable a solid or dotted line outlining the shape. For both solid and dotted lines, set the stroke Color and Thickness. 
4. Click the Blend mode dropdown menu to choose a transparency setting. These effects are ideal if you're overlaying a text block in front of an image or other visual content.
5. To blur either the Element or Backdrop, switch the toggle on beside Blur and use the slider to change the level of blurriness.
6. Click Save to save your changes and keep editing, or click Exit then Save to close the editor.

Text block background colors are only supported on version 7.1 sites. Stroke, Blend Mode, and Blur customizations are available for Fluid Engine sections. For sections using the classic editor, only Stroke is available.

Delete text blocks

To delete a text block, click the trash can icon in the text toolbar. For more detailed steps, visit Deleting blocks.

Note: In version 7.0, this action can’t be undone unless you cancel all edits to the page before clicking Save.

If you can't delete a text block, it may be a placeholder text block. Learn more in the next section.

Placeholder text blocks

Placeholder text blocks appear anywhere you can add blocks when the content area is empty. For example, when you create a blank page, a text block appears when you start editing the page.

You can’t delete these blocks until you add more content, but empty placeholder blocks won’t add padding to your page or be visible to visitors.

Error message: We have detected an error while saving your content. Please try again.

When you delete content from existing collection items, this error sometimes displays when saving. This helps prevent content loss. To prevent the error and save successfully, add a spacer block to the content area. This error can appear in blog posts, event descriptions, and product additional information.

FAQ

How do I change fonts?

You can change font types and sizes in site styles. To learn more, visit Changing fonts.

Are there keyboard shortcuts?

Yes. For a full list, visit Squarespace keyboard shortcuts and tips.

Can I underline text?

On version 7.1 sites, you can add a stylized underline to the text in your text block with text highlights.

Otherwise, text blocks don't support underlining text with the text toolbar. Instead, you can add an underline using a keyboard shortcut or site styles tweak, depending on your site's version.

To learn more, visit Formatting text.

Can I style text in different colors?

In version 7.1 text blocks, you can style individual letters, words, or sentences to be different colors. Use the color icon in the text block toolbar to choose a color from your site-wide palette, or choose a custom color. The text block toolbar color overrides the text color for that section theme. To learn more, visit Styling text.

In version 7.0 text blocks, all site text matches the color chosen for that group in site styles. You can only override this with custom CSS, or by using Markdown blocks or code blocks in place of text blocks. Note that we don't provide support for advanced modifications like these. Review Adding custom code to your site for more details.

Can text blocks have different background colors?

Yes. On version 7.1 sites, you can add background colors to text blocks. On version 7.0 sites, text blocks don't have a setting for unique background colors. The best way to create this is to use poster image blocks with solid color images.

Can I add images to text blocks?

Yes. In Fluid Engine, you can place text blocks directly over images. In the classic editor, you can wrap text around images by floating image blocks in text blocks.

Why does some text look different from the rest?

This is probably a result of copying and pasting text into text blocks. To learn more, visit Fixing text formatting.

Why are text blocks merging?

In the classic editor, two or more text blocks stacked vertically always merge into one. To prevent this, separate each text block with spacer blocks or line blocks.

Text blocks placed next to each other horizontally won't merge. You can still use spacer blocks between each text block to create space between columns. To learn more, visit Moving blocks to customize layouts.

Why are there nonsense words in my text blocks?

Some templates include “Lorem Ipsum” text in demo content. This is placeholder text intended to show how text might look in a site layout. You can edit the text or delete the text blocks entirely.

Does the text block have spell check?

Squarespace doesn't have a built-in spell checker, but our supported browsers do. By enabling your browser's spell checker, you can identify misspelled words and grammatical errors while editing text blocks on pages or blog posts. Here's more information on browser spell checkers:

• Firefox spell checker
• Spell Checker for Chrome

Another option is to spell check your text in an editing program before adding it to your site. Copying and pasting text from another program can carry over formatting, so we recommend visiting Fixing text formatting to avoid any issues.