Your New Go-To Keyboard Shortcut: Introducing the Command Palette

A handy new tool that streamlines navigation, editing, and settings changes.

October 18, 2023

Jeremy Anderberg

Can we all agree that keyboard shortcuts have become indispensable to the experience of using a computer? Just think about where the world would be without copy/paste! We may not think about them much, but these combinations of keystrokes have helped millions of people make their daily—even hourly—workflows faster and more efficient. 

WordPress already utilizes a number of incredibly handy keyboard shortcuts:

  • When you’re in an individual post or page, typing “/” allows you to quickly search for and insert any of our blocks or patterns. 
  • “Shift+Command+/” (Mac) or “Ctrl+Shift+/” (PC) brings you right into distraction free mode (one of our favorites around here). 
  • “Ctrl+Option+O” (Mac) or “Shift+Alt+O” (PC) toggles the list view/outline pane, allowing you to quickly see your blocks at a glance and rearrange them easily if needed.

And now, with the brand Command Palette tool, yet another piece has been added to the ever-growing kit of convenient, time-saving keyboard shortcuts. 

We think it’s pretty darn cool, so in this short post we’ll walk you through where and how to use it. 

Diving deeper 

The Command Palette is available across the editing experience, whether you’re switching between templates in the Site Editor or toggling through settings in a post/page, with specific contextual options depending on where you are. While in editing or writing mode, simply hit Command+K (Mac) or Control+K (PC). This will bring up a handy little search box with the instructions: “Type a command or search.” 

Type “new” to bring up quick actions for adding a new post or page. Enter the name of a specific post or page on your site to quickly navigate exactly where you want (“About page,” for example). Or access a template in a flash by typing “Header,” “Footer,” “Home,” etc. 

Beyond the basics, you can dive deeper into the WordPress experience with the following commands: 

  • Back to page (to return to editing a page from a template)
  • Customize CSS
  • Delete template
  • Delete template part
  • Disable pre-publish checklist
  • Edit Template (when editing a page)
  • Enable pre-publish checklist
  • Exit code editor
  • Hide breadcrumbs
  • Learn about styles (to trigger the welcome guide for Styles)
  • Manage all custom patterns
  • Open code editor
  • Open editor preferences
  • Open keyboard shortcuts
  • Open Navigation Menus
  • Open List View (in the Site Editor)
  • Preview in a new tab
  • Show breadcrumbs
  • Toggle block inspector
  • Toggle fullscreen mode
  • Toggle list view (in the Post Editor)
  • Toggle settings sidebar
  • Toggle spotlight mode
  • Toggle top toolbar
  • View site
  • View template parts
  • View templates

Site Editor-specific commands:

  • Reset styles to default
  • Reset template
  • Reset template part
  • Open styles
  • Open styles revisions

Block-specific commands: 

  • Group
  • Ungroup
  • Duplicate
  • Remove
  • Add before
  • Add after

The ultimate shortcut tool

Think of the Command Palette as the ultimate shortcut tool, allowing you to do more with fewer clicks, whether you’re trying to toggle a specific setting or transform an Image Block to a Cover Block.

You can move almost anywhere in the editor from this shortcut box, so play around, get comfortable with it, and make navigating your site even more of a breeze than it was before. 

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85 Comments

Comments are closed.

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    Liked by 2 people

  2. mountaincoward Oct 18th at 6:36 pm

    Is this for all blogs including non-paying ones? Also, I don’t know how to set up a template but it sounds useful – is there a previous post about this please? I don’t remember reading one.

    Liked by 3 people

  3. Lee Weng Siong Oct 18th at 7:07 pm

    Thanks for infos…

    Liked by 2 people

  4. Richard Morrison Oct 18th at 8:23 pm

    oooh! Now that is going to be convenient.

    Liked by 8 people

  5. Ayndrila Manos Oct 18th at 8:24 pm

    Thanks

    Liked by 1 person

  6. cbinay361 Oct 18th at 11:45 pm

    Binay chaudhary

    Liked by 1 person

  7. SusanR Oct 18th at 11:54 pm

    Yet another thing to learn.

    Liked by 1 person

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    Oh, this all sounds like double dutch to me! 🤷‍♀️

    Liked by 1 person

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    Wow, It’s Going To Very Helpful.

    Liked by 1 person

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    Nice

    Liked by 1 person

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    good

    Liked by 1 person

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    Thanks

    Liked by 1 person

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    Hey

    Liked by 10 people

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    Very useful. I have noted them down

    Liked by 5 people

  17. Susie Lindau Oct 20th at 11:51 pm

    Now that I’m back to blogging, this will come in very handy. Thanks!

    Like

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    Thanks

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    Nice

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    Liked by 1 person

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    Great

    Liked by 3 people

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    Fun

    Liked by 10 people

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    Nice!

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  36. mamesadbouh Oct 23rd at 1:42 pm

    Fun

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  37. Tajamal Waqas Oct 23rd at 3:02 pm

    Great tool.

    Liked by 4 people

  38. David Buckle Oct 23rd at 5:41 pm

    cooler

    Like

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    Great

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  40. saithafaq0808 Oct 24th at 5:28 am

    Nice

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    Great

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    Great

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  43. Pravin Maghade Oct 24th at 12:16 pm

    Very nice information and very helpful thank you

    Liked by 1 person

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    Nice one

    Liked by 1 person

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    awesome

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  46. Lionel Stanley Oct 24th at 8:39 pm

    Thanks for the information

    Like

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    Thanks for your information.

    Like

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    Nice

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    Awesome 🙌

    Like

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    I love this feature!

    Like

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    Love this Feature!

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    Liked by 2 people

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    Nice

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  55. mamnoonakhan Oct 26th at 5:35 pm

    Excellent’

    Liked by 1 person

  56. Rudo Tofu Oct 29th at 5:24 pm

    Thank you for the translation

    Liked by 1 person

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    Great work

    Liked by 1 person

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    nice one

    Liked by 1 person

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    nice

    Like

  60. Carlos R Rodriguez Nov 1st at 11:43 am

    Thanks for the very useful information

    Like

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    This is really great going forward

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  62. dailyblogsdose Nov 2nd at 2:30 pm

    good

    Like

  63. Ms. Liz Nov 3rd at 7:11 pm

    As a PC user I don’t find this a friendly intro to keyboard shortcuts. It belatedly recognises PC users after initially starting with Mac terminology, and doesn’t even explain what the PC equivalent of “Option” is.. I’m guessing the Alt key but the instructions should be similarly clear for everybody!

    Liked by 1 person

  64. Rajinder Saini Nov 5th at 6:03 am

    Tnks

    Like

  65. SocialContent_gigs Nov 7th at 6:04 pm

    This is totally helpful! Thanks for sharing

    Liked by 6 people

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