Reusable blocks

Start hereBuilding with blocksReusable blocksA reusable block is a piece of a page you build once and use on as many pages as you like, such as a call-to-action band, a team card or your site's header. Change the original and every page that uses it changes too.The Reusable Blocks screenOpen Reusable Blocks under Content in the sidebar. Each card shows a small preview of the block, its name, whether it is editable or locked, and how many pages it is on.A card may also carry a label: Not published yet for a block that has never gone live, Unpublished changes when you have edited it since it was last published, or Publishes with a date when a publish is scheduled.When any blocks have changes waiting, Publish all changes at the top puts them all live in one go, after showing you which ones and how many pages each reaches.Your reusable blocks.Making a reusable blockThere are two ways. The quickest is to turn something you have already built into one:

In the page editor, select the block you want to reuse. Usually that is a whole Section.

At the bottom of its settings, press Save as reusable block.

Type a Block name, such as "Contact band", and press Save block.

The block on your page is swapped for the reusable one, and it is live straight away, ready to place on other pages.Or start from nothing: on the Reusable Blocks screen press New reusable block. It opens in its own editor as Untitled block; rename it in the box at the top, build it like a page, then press Publish.A reusable block is a single block at heart. If you put two blocks side by side at its top level, it quietly wraps them in an edge-to-edge Section, and says Wrapped in a Section. That changes nothing on the page.Putting one on a pageIn the page editor, open Add block and scroll to the Reusable group at the bottom, or type the block's name in Search blocks…. Drag it onto the page like any other block.Click it on the page and the settings panel shows its name, Used on however many pages, a Delete button (which removes it from this page only) and Detach.Detach turns this one copy into ordinary blocks you can change freely. It stops following the original from then on, so later changes to the original won't reach this page.Locked or editableEvery reusable block is one or the other, set by the Editable on pages tick box at the top of its editor.

Locked (the tick box off): the block looks exactly the same on every page. Nothing in it can be changed from a page. Use this for things that must match everywhere, like a footer.

Editable (the tick box on): each page can change the words, pictures and links inside it, and add blocks of its own into it. The layout and styling still come from the original.

In an editable block, click a heading, picture or button inside it and its settings show just the content you can change, with the note that styling and layout come from the reusable block. To add something extra on one page, drag a new block into any box inside it: a section, a card or a grid cell. It stays where you dropped it, and only this page has it.An editable reusable block on a page.Changing the originalClick a block on the Reusable Blocks screen to open it in its own editor. The bar at the top shows how far a change reaches (On every page, or a number of pages).Your edits are saved as you go as a draft (Auto-saves a draft). Visitors keep seeing the published version until you press Publish changes. You can also Discard the draft, Schedule it for later, or open the version history to restore an earlier version into the draft.When you edit a page, you see the draft of every reusable block on it, header and footer included. If any have unpublished changes, the page's Publish asks which of them should go live with the page, with a tick box for each (Also publish "…"). They start unticked, because a change to the header reaches every page.If a change to the original removes a part that some pages had filled in with their own words, publishing warns Some pages will lose their own text and lists them. Those pages would show the original's text instead. Press Publish anyway only if that is what you want.Editing a reusable block.Your header and footer are reusable blocksThe header and footer on every page are ordinary reusable blocks, chosen under Settings → CMS → Layout. Edit them from the Reusable Blocks screen like any other, and publish when you are happy. See Logo, icons, header and footer.Deleting a reusable block that is still on pages leaves a gap where it was on each of them. The delete box tells you how many pages use it; it can't be undone.← Every block, explainedThe site menu →Getting startedPagesBuilding with blocksNavigation and lookMediaForms and leadsCatalogueShopBookings and membersRunning the siteCairnWebsites for businesses that need more than a brochure. Built, hosted and kept running by us.StartBuildRun© 2026 Cairn. All rights reserved.Built with Cairn.