The building blocks of every slide

At the core of the Slides editor is what we call "blocks". A block is a distinct piece of content that can be individually moved around and configured within a slide. There are many different kinds of blocks for different types of content, such as text, image, iframe and shape.

See Block layout and shortcuts for precise positioning and multi-selection. You can also group related blocks or lock finished content to prevent accidental edits.

Clicking on a block once gives it focus. The text block, as shown in the screenshot below, can also be double-clicked when you want to edit its text content.

The following keyboard shortcuts are available when one or more blocks are focused:

Action	macOS	Windows
Move a block	← ↑ ↓ →	← ↑ ↓ →
Move farther	Hold ⇧ while pressing an arrow key	Hold ⇧ while pressing an arrow key
Copy	⌘ C	Ctrl C
Cut	⌘ X	Ctrl X
Paste	⌘ V	Ctrl V
Group blocks	⌘ G	Ctrl G
Delete	Delete	Backspace or Delete
Edit text content	Return	Enter
Stop editing text content	Esc	Esc

Configuration

The left hand side of the editor updates to provide options for the currently focused block. In the example below, we're looking at the configuration options for a text block which include alignment, size, color and more.