One great benefit of the block system is that we can easily transform a block from one type to another. Want your text to become a Heading? Super easy.
In this lesson, we’ll talk all about how to Turn Blocks into Other Blocks.
Copy link to headingBasics
Transforming blocks is really cool – and speeds up text editing. We can mostly only transform text-based blocks, and more advanced blocks such as images or embeds can’t be “turned into” like text blocks.
To explore the basics of this feature, try clicking on the six-dots that appear on the left of any block, and then choose “Turn into”:
[GIF showing block menu and Turn Into]
Here, you’ll see all the different blocks you can transform your existing block into. By clicking any block type from this list, you’ll see your existing block transform into a block of that type.
For example, on the GIF below, you can see how I’m turning an already existing text paragraph into a Heading 2.
[GIF showing Text → Heading 2]
This is a great hack for text editing, and an essential feature for everyday use.
It’s important to know that your content is always preserved when transforming blocks, so there’s no need to worry about data loss when doing this. Some content may not fit, of course. For example, if you transform a big text paragraph into a heading, you might want to edit that heading so that it has less text. But, on a technical level, transforming blocks preserves content and is fully reversible.
Copy link to headingCommands
Outside of the “Turn into” menu, which appears on most basic block types, and some advanced, we can also use / commands as well as keyboard shortcuts to transform blocks.
While in a block (either an empty block or a block with some text in it) we can always use the /turninto [block type] command. Just start typing, for example /turninto page, and the block you’re writing this command in, will be turned into a Page block. I love this command, and use it much more often than the “Turn into” menu, which requires a few clicks.
Summary
Block transformation is a very cool text editing feature in Notion, and as soon as you get the hang of it, you’ll be able to edit your documents much quicker, without having to create new blocks of your desired type, and trying to manually copy and paste text across blocks.