There are many gallery blocks on WordPress, but did you know WordPress has added some secret gallery blocks and that you can add captions to them?
Here’s how to find and use them.
- On a draft post, click on the add a new block button (the ‘+‘ symbol) and click on ‘Patterns.’
- Either click on the Featured box and select Gallery or click on the Explore box. In this post, I’m using the Explore box.
- Select Gallery from the new list that appears.
- Select one of the galleries. In this post, I’m selecting the Large image and grid gallery.
- The gallery and images are inserted into your post. Note – the images already on this block are not downloaded into your media library.
- To change the images to your own, click on an image and select the Replace button from the image toolbar that appears.
- Click on the Select Image button and the button where your image is located. In this post, I’m selecting images from my Media Library.
- Select an image from your media library. Don’t forget to align the image to centre the caption. Click here to find out how to align photos and images.
- Do the same for the other images in the block.
- Captions will display provided you have added them to the photos and images in your media library.
- Your gallery is now complete. Here’s mine.
When readers click on any photos in the gallery, any watermark or copyright information you have added will be displayed on each photo in the slideshow. Go ahead and click on one of the images in my gallery to see the watermark.
There are options available to change the background and text colours in the gallery I have used in this post. Click on the block and then on ‘Block‘ (in the top right corner of the draft page) to change them.
Other galleries available in this gallery block are –
- Gallery
- Organic gallery with intro text
- Gallery with description and a button
- Three images side-by-side gallery
- Two images side-by-side gallery
Give them a try, and let me know how you get on by leaving me a comment.
Click here to find out why you should always watermark your photos and image.
If you have questions about these secret galleries and how to use them, leave them in the comments section.
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Hugh's Views & News 
oh patterns are superb. I love them. And they are so good to designing Pages as well as blog post.
Great tips as always.
Thanks for sharing.
You’re welcome. Good to see you already using Patterns.
Hugh, I had no idea about patterns. Thank you so much for explaining this in such a great way! I’m going to try it!
The more I think I understand WordPress, the more I realize that I didn’t!
Cher xoxoxo
I’m learning about WordPress every day, Cher. But I enjoy learning about it. I’m not somebody who won’t move on because they don’t like something. And I enjoy sharing all these tips with you all.
Well we really appreciate it, dear Hugh! I was very intimidated by WordPress when I first started blogging. I need to take a page from your book, Hugh! I should make a concerted effort to explore more! Thank you, Hugh! Cher xoxoxo
You’re welcome, Cher. Unfortunately, many of the problems I hear other bloggers blame on WordPress are down to the incorrect way they are using the platform.
And that is something to think about, isn’t it, Hugh? That’s why I do want to explore more of the “behind the scenes” as it were. I might be doing something in the wrong way or could improve on what I’ve been doing! Cher xoxoxo
Great tip. Thanks. I will try it.
You’re welcome. I hope they help.
Thanks Hugh! This is awesome! Now if you know anything about WP and email subscription widgets maybe that could be another topic? I had Jetpack. It worked fine until it didn’t. I tried deleting it and reinstalling to no avail. Tried Mailerlite, and even had their tech people help me set it up. They swore they’d tested it and it worked fine for them. And it looks like it did. But it never worked for any other potential subscribers. I’ve removed both.
If you can help, I’d appreciate it! But if it’s beyond the scope of your expertise don’t feel compelled to put yourself out.
Thanks!
Michelle
Are you referring to the Subscribe block, Michelle? I tried adding it to a drat post, and it seemed to work fine. I also have it in the widget bar on my blog, and from what I know, it works too.
I assume so, but I’m not seeing a subscribe block… It’s supposed to be in with all the blocks, right?
Thanks!
Yes, it’s one of the 160+ blocks available on WordPress. In the search bar (when selecting a new block), type in Subscribe, and it will show. I can add some screenshots here in the comments section if it helps?
When I searched for subscribe under widgets, I get “no results found.” I may need to chat with WP about this. So weird.
Thanks!
I’ve attached a screenshot. I hope it helps.
Thanks Hugh! No luck. Subscribe is just not there. But at least I have a much clearer idea of just what the problem is.
One for the Happiness Engineers, Michelle.
Figured out the problem with the email subscription problem. It was the theme! I changed it for an unrelated reason, and all of a sudden, everyone started getting email notifications. Thanks for helping me try to troubleshoot it.
You’re welcome, Michelle. Glad you figured it out.
This was so interesting Hugh, I had no idea we could do this so I am now keen to try it! Thanks again for sharing your knowledge with us 🙂
There are lots of options under the Patterns button, Debbie. A whole new world to explore.
I’m already exploring thanks Hugh 🙂
This is all new to me and I definitely plan to explore these options – thank you 🙂
You’re welcome. Glad it’s helped, Sarah.
Thanks for sharing this feature with us, Hugh, and for testing it out. It sure seems like there are many options these days to add galleries and captions.
I know I should explore and experiment with them as well (and follow your advice and tips), but I just can’t be bothered these weeks as writing blogs is time-consuming enough. One day, I must abandon the classic block to add my photos, but right now it’s the easiest and quickest way to add galleries to my posts.
If the Classic block is doing what you want it to, then continue to use it, Liesbet.
These posts from me are to let readers know that WordPress is adding lots of new options, some of which may be easier for them to use.
Thanks Hugh. You always seem to know exactly what I need 😆
You’re welcome, Brenda. Glad to be of some help.
You always are
Hugh, that is really cool! There is so much I don’t know yet or new features I don’t notice since I don’t have the time for exploring. But you always motivate to do so. While reading this post at the same time I followed your instructions on a draft post. As I said, very cool, thank you!
Rest assured, I’ll be bringing you all any information on new changes and features that WordPress make, Erika.
Good to hear that you followed the instructions while drafting a new post. It reassured me that everything I said in the post made sense and was easy to follow.
Fantastic, Hugh. It is fun exploring WordPress together with you!
Yes, I checked it out at the same time. That was fun!
Thanks Hugh. I was able to used the gallery with verbaige today.
Good to hear, Danny.
This will be so helpful for future posts, Hugh. I recently tried to add two photos, side-by-side, as a gallery with limited success. For some reason, one image was cut off on the right side. I still haven’t figured out why that it happened or how to fix it. Looks fine in the preview, not so much in the actual post.
It can be frustrating sometimes when blocks do not align correctly, but I generally find I’m using the wrong blocks to do what I’m trying to do, Janis. There are so many blocks that it can be challenging to find the right one. I generally cut my losses and contact one of the Happiness Engineers. They save me a lot of time.
Thanks so much for this, Hugh. It’s great information. I can’t keep up with all the WP changes. 💜
There are lots of great changes taking place, Colleen. Most of us will never use some of them, but I’ll keep you updated on the ones I think most of us do need to know.
Excellent. I appreciate these posts, Hugh. You’re always most generous of your time. 💜
This looks like a great idea for displaying photos, especially for my photo challenge. I have seen some in posts and wondered how they did it–I guess I should be more inquisitive, Hugh, LOL! I will be checking this out this week for sure! Thanks a bunch!
Always happy to help, Terri. There are lots more under the Patterns button to explore. I’ll be checking it out.
Me too!
Thanks. This is most helpful.
You’re welcome, Darlene.
Thank you, Hugh. Clear and concise as ever.
I have been trying to work out how to add a gallery for each of my road trip books to my blog. Maybe this is the way!
Is it possible to add quite a few photos into the galleries – maybe 100, or is this a bad idea as it will load slowly? If so, is there a better way to do it?
I do reduce the size of my photos to 1200 px wide to reduce the file size.
Like Dan, I need captions.
These galleries, under the ‘Patterns’ option, only allow a certain number of photos or images.
100 photos is a lot, but it’s good to see you reduce the size of each image, although I’d recommend cutting them further to 900 x 675 pixels. The more photos and images you have, the slower the download, but it also depends on the wifi speed of the individual user. My wifi supplier supplies me with ultra-fast speed broadband, so downloads are quick, but other users may not be so lucky with the broadband speed of their wifi.
If you need lots of photos, I’d recommend you load them on something like Google Photos and leave a link to them in the post. Not everyone will click the link to view the photos, but it’ll mean your blog posts will download much faster, so people won’t get fed up with waiting and moving on without reading the post. Perhaps add a few photos to your posts and a link to where the rest of the photos can be viewed?
Also, look at some of WordPress’s ‘Embed’ blocks for photo sites. I know they have one for Flickr, so if you load photos to Flickr, you can use the Flickr block for your photos.
Does that help?
That helps mahoosively! Thank you, Hugh!
I’m not sure what Flickr is, but now’s the time to find out. It sounds like a gallery block and a link is the way to go.
I will reduce my photos further – I do the 1200 as that’s the requirement for my cover shots, but 900 would be easy enough for the rest. I have just discovered FastStone photo resizer when I was looking for watermark software at your behest. FastStone resizes photos in batches which saves me aeons of time. I am sorry to say I used to have to resize each photo individually using Paint! 🙂
I use the free version of Photobulk for watermarking. You can watermark as many photos as you want in one go, although I do have to resize all the photos first. However, I rarely use galleries in my posts, so I don’t need to resize them all in one go.
Flickr has been around for many years. I used to have an account but, for whatever reason, stopped using it as I tend to use the Apple library for all my photos now. It’s worth checking out, though.
Your example looks like one of the few gallery options that show the captions, both in the gallery view and in the slide show. I might have to experiment with this. Thanks!
I didn’t try the other galleries I found under ‘Patterns’, Dan. If you try them, let me know how you get on.
I will.