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How to use Classic Editor on WordPress 5 without plugins

Here are the guides on how to use Classic Editor on WordPress 5 without any plugins. This means you can use it without disabling the Gutenberg.

Precaution: this guide assumes you don’t use page builder by premium theme on your Classic Editor like Avada. If you do use that, then you probably no choice but installing the “Classic Editor” plugin.

1. Deactivate any plugins that disable Gutenberg.

Don’t bother to remove them. Just deactivate them, for now, is fine. You can remove them later once you are sure you’ll be fine to use Classic Editor inside the Gutenberg.

2. Add New on Post or Add New on Page

So clean and simple, honestly. I had no idea why many people are complaining about this Gutenberg editor before they explore it first (including me, doh!)

3. Add new block named “Classic”

This block is not displayed on the top, so you need to search it by typing “Classic”.

Oh, don’t forget to write your draft title on that “Add title” field first. Because when I tried this myself, it did not allow me to add or choose any block before that field is present.

4. Write inside the block you just added.

Now that you had “Classic Editor” block there, you need to write and edit your content inside this block only. 

Don’t bother to add another new block. Just type, edit, copy, paste, etc as you usually do when you’re still using WordPress 4.9 – when they haven’t made the Gutenberg as default editor.

Do your writing until you finish there. Also, do your editing there.

5. The next step is your choice

You can publish your post or page as it is inside the “Classic Editor”. You also have the option to convert them into “blocks”. Feel free to choose from there.

With this technique, the browser extension like Grammarly will work as it used to work.

But, the other Gutenberg function like stats (when you clicked the “i” icon at the top left), which shows you the

  • Words

  • Headings

  • Paragraphs

  • Blocks

won’t work correctly. It will only show the Words and the Blocks count. It can’t count the Headings and the Paragraphs.

To make it works, you need to convert to “Blocks”, which as far as I know, no way to convert it back into a single block of “Classic Editor”

Personal tips

I usually write inside a Classic Editor until the final revision of the posts.

Then, when I am ready to publish it, I will convert it to Gutenberg blocks and format it with some drags to there and drops to here.

This way, I can make sure that Grammarly had checked the whole text. 

For a more complex scenario, it’s also possible to add multiple blocks of “Classic” or combine them with some other blocks.

Conclusion

Gutenberg may not that good, nor that bad. The problem I see is it seems the team behind WordPress launched it too early. Another thing is they don’t give users the option to opt out or opt in for this new default editor since the first day.

I am not sure if this “Classic” block had been there since the first Gutenberg launches on last year. Or, they just add it some days or months later? Regardless of the answer, as it is now, we can use Classic Editor on WordPress 5 without plugins.


Categories: WordPress  

Tags: Gutenberg   wordpress