A journal body is not a single text box. Select the + at the start of a line and you get a menu of block types: headings, a list, a quote, a divider, a table, an image, a link preview and a rich embed. Nothing on the menu explains what each one does beyond its name, so here is what each block actually gives you.
Headings go from H1 to H4
The heading block offers four levels, and a new heading defaults to H2 rather than H1. There is no H5 or H6. If you are structuring a long journal, plan your outline around four levels, not six.
A quote block carries an attribution field
The quote block is two fields, not one: the quote itself, and a separate line for the author's name. Use the second field for attribution instead of typing "- Author" into the quote text, since the two are styled differently.
A table starts at two rows by three columns
Insert a table and you get two rows and three columns, with the first row already set as a heading row. You can add rows and columns from there. What you cannot do is stretch the table wider than its content. The table block has no width control at all, unlike some other blocks in the same menu.
Images: the block will not appear until the draft exists
The image block uploads by file, but the upload only works once your journal has been saved as a draft at least once. In practice that means: fill in the title and tagline on the first screen, save, and only then does the body editor's image tool have somewhere to send the file. If you start typing a body before that first save, do not expect the image block to work, since it has nothing to attach the upload to yet.
A pasted link only turns into a rich embed for seven services
Paste a URL directly into the body and the editor checks it against a fixed list: YouTube, Vimeo, Twitter/X, Instagram, TikTok, Spotify and SoundCloud. A link from one of those becomes a playable embed. Every other link, including ones that render an embed elsewhere on the web, becomes a plain link preview card: a title, an image and a description, with no player.
If you need a video or audio source outside that list, link to it and let the reader click through, rather than expecting it to play inline.
What this means for how you write
Plan a journal's structure around what the editor actually supports rather than what a typical rich-text editor supports elsewhere. Four heading levels are enough for nested sections. A two-by-three table is a starting grid, not a fixed size. And the fastest way to lose an image is to try to add one before your draft has a title saved.
Related
- Which embeds you can use in a project, and why yours was rejected covers the separate, server-side rule for project embeds. That rule is not the one described here: this article is about which links the journal editor turns into a playable embed as you type.
- Journal editor status label
- What changes a published journal before you press Publish