Use the List block to organize text in numbered or bulleted lists. This guide will show you how to write lists in the WordPress editor.
In this guide
To add the List block, click the + Block Inserter icon and search for “list”. Click it to add the block to the post or page.
Alternatively, you can quickly start a numbered list by typing 1. and then a space. To quickly start a bulleted list, type * or - and then a space. When typing these commands on a new line, it will automatically create a List block.
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Using your keyboard, you can also type /list on a new line and press enter to quickly add a new List block.
/list on a new line.For more information, visit our detailed instructions on adding blocks.
You can change any text-based block (such as a Paragraph or Heading block) to a List block by following these steps:
- With your mouse, highlight the multiple lines of text.
- Click on the leftmost button in the toolbar to open the Transform To menu.
- Select List. Each separate line of text will be transformed into an item in a list:
When writing a list, you can press the Enter/ Return key on your keyboard to create a new list item. You can press the Tab key to indent a list item.
To end a list and return to normal text, press the Enter/ Return key twice — the first press will create a new empty list item, but the second press will remove that and start a new Paragraph block instead.
When you click on the List block, a toolbar of options will appear above it. When you click on an individual list item within the list, a slightly different toolbar appears.
The List block has the following options in its toolbar:
- Change block type.
- Drag the block.
- Move the block up or down.
- List type:
- Unordered list (bullet points).
- Ordered list (numbers).
- Move an indented list in.
- AI assistant.
- More options.
Individual list items have the following toolbar options:
- Select the overall List block.
- Drag the list item.
- Move the list item up or down the list.
- Indentation:
- Outdent a list item (or use the Shift + Tab keys on your keyboard).
- Indent a list item (or use the Tab key on your keyboard).
- Bold the text.
- Make the text italic.
- Add a link to the text.
- Additional text formatting options.
- More options.
A List block can be an unordered list (using bullet points) or an ordered list (using numbers.) Lists can also have mixed orderings, such as numbers followed by bullets or vice versa, by selecting the desired list type in the toolbar:
You can use the indent option in the toolbar to nest a list item underneath the one above it. You can also press the space bar on your keyboard (with your cursor at the beginning of the list item) to indent an item.
Once a list item is indented, you can outdent it again using the toolbar option to the left of the indent icon, or press the backspace key on your keyboard.
The additional options for text formatting in the List block are:
- Footnote
- Highlight (Text color)
- Inline code
- Inline image
- Keyboard input
- Language
- Strikethrough
- Subscript
- Superscript
- Uppercase
You can use the above options to apply formatting to your text or a set of characters in a List block. To do so:
- Highlight the words or characters you’d like to apply the formatting to.
- Select the desired option from the toolbar to apply.
Use the Highlight option to change the text color of a few specific words or characters, or set a colored background behind specific words or characters in a list. To add text color to just some words (as opposed to all the text in the block), follow these steps:
- Select the text you’d like to format.
- Click the downward arrow in the block toolbar.
- Click Highlight.
- A small window with color options for Text and Background will pop up. This shows a set of predefined color options to choose from, as well as a color picker where you can choose the specific color you want.
When you select a block, you will find additional block settings in the right sidebar. If you do not see the sidebar, you may need to click the Settings icon in the top-right corner to bring up the settings. This icon looks like a square with two uneven columns:
The List block includes the following settings:
When working with an ordered (i.e., numeric) list, you’ll find additional options in the block settings sidebar.
You can select the “Start value” for the list to set your list to begin from a number other than 1. This option is useful if you need to insert non-list content into your list (like an image) and continue the numeric list below.
Choose from the following numbering style options:
- Uppercase letters
- Lowercase letters
- Uppercase Roman numerals
- Lowercase Roman numerals
Use “Reverse list numbering” to reverse the order of your list. For example, if you wanted to create a countdown list that started with 10, you would use this option.
