How to Revert to Old Writing Style in WordPress Gutenberg

The more things change, the more they stay the same. In this case, change is inevitable; everything online changes sooner or later. WordPress has spent almost its entire life with the rich text editor we all know and… well, I can’t say love. But it’s not as if we’ve had a choice up until now, is it? Some of us love it, some of us hate it, some of us just don’t care.

What has changed? WordPress created an entirely new way to edit text on their platform. What has stayed the same? People love to complain about changes - even if those changes are ones you appreciate as soon as you get used to them.

This is a post about the new WordPress text editor, known to the community as Gutenberg.

For a quick history lesson, Johannes Gutenberg was a man who lived in the 1400s. He is responsible for inventing a printing press with movable type in Europe - a technology that changed the world more than 500 years ago. His most famous publication, of course, was the Gutenberg Bible. Since he was such an influential personage in the space of publication, his name is often adopted for use in various ways. Project Gutenberg is a massive online library of public domain works, just to give you an example. Of course, Gutenberg is also the name of this WordPress editor.

WordPress Gutenberg

The WordPress Gutenberg project has been in the works for quite a while, actually. An optional plugin version was available for over a year before it became the default editor with WordPress 5.0.

The goal of Gutenberg is to make heavy use of the Blocks format. Blocks have been in the background for a long time. But they haven’t always been available to those who want to use them for custom purposes. What Gutenberg does is bring more flexibility to how a user can build a blog post.

Seen one of the articles published on Vice, Motherboard, or other deep reporting online magazines? You know the ones, with the parallax scrolling and semi-interactive media, all powered by HTML5 elements? A common WordPress blog isn’t able to make something anywhere near as interactive or engaging. No, common WordPress is stuck with a very basic blog format, text with a few embedded images and not quite a bit else. Anything more advanced would need plugins and even custom code. You would need a heady combination of media embeds, links, shortcodes and widgets just to get something that looks half as good.

The block-based format is an extremely cool tool for those who like to build more ambitious kinds of blog posts. For those who hate change, or who don’t want to deal with anything more complex than a basic text format, the block format can add extra work to the whole process.

One of the biggest benefits to Gutenberg is the ability to be quite a bit more WYSIWYG with your page creation. With the old editor, you usually have to guess at how your images and embeds are going to display within your text and you have very limited ways of changing them. Usually that basically just amounts to the difference between left/right justified and centered, small and large, and whether or not it has a visible caption - it’s not very flexible.

Blocks may seem like more work at first glance and they take some adaptation. But they allow quite a bit more flexibility for complex design work.

Blocks also bring a default level of power to new users. People who have been using WordPress for years likely rely on their knowledge of arcane secrets, like shortcodes and plugins, to achieve effects that blocks can now achieve on their own - it makes advanced layouts more accessible to the novice.

WordPress has continued to iterate and improve the block editor with each release. For example, WordPress 6.7.1 included a fix for picking and deselecting multiple categories - a welcome quality-of-life improvement that shows the team is still actively listening to user feedback.

Gutenberg Drawbacks

Change comes with turbulence. When Gutenberg first launched, it received a massive number of negative reviews, far outweighing the positive reviews. But most of them came from those who basically didn’t like change. Very few were problems with the functionality of the new editor; most were basically resistance for its own sake.

That said, Gutenberg isn’t perfect - it’s a significant change to the infrastructure of WordPress and every such change will see problems arise. Some, sure, just don’t like the new editor and aren’t willing to put in the time to learn it. Others could be running custom code, custom themes, or custom plugins that no longer work as expected. And, yes, occasionally there are legitimate compatibility problems that prevent creating new posts, or display posts in a broken manner.

Most of the early teething problems have been resolved at this point. Plugin and theme authors have had years to update their work and the Gutenberg team has continued to smooth out the editor. If you were burned by early compatibility problems, it may well be worth giving the editor a second look.

I know this has sounded like it rails against anyone who fears change, as if your problems are unfounded. I sympathize, I do. If you’re experiencing problems with the editor, you’re probably looking for some way to fix your problem in the short term, regardless of what you feel like doing in the longer term.

Here are a few options you can look into if you’re not satisfied with the way the Gutenberg block editor works with your site.

Option 1: Revert to an Older Version

Gutenberg is the default editor as of WordPress 5.0 - this update, when applied, may have broken some things on your site. On the easier end of things, it might just make it ignore a few editor-side plugins, or make those plugins unnecessary. At the worse end, you might see display problems with your site as a whole. If you’re experiencing problems, one option is to roll back the upgrade - though this is increasingly not recommended given how many versions WordPress has released since 5.0.

Ideally, before applying any WordPress framework upgrade, you backed up your site - it makes it easier to revert changes. Back up the new version before doing anything, in case the old backup is broken.

First, deactivate your plugins. Go into your admin page and find your plugin directory and systematically go through each of them and deactivate them. Write down each one you have and back up settings if you can, just in case something goes wrong.

Use your FTP access to view your site. You are going to need server-side editing of your files, which is why a backup is critically important. Messing up here can mean devastating consequences for your site as a whole. Make a backup.

There are three folders in the main section of your site. These are wp-admin, wp-content and wp-includes. You want to delete wp-admin and wp-includes. Do not touch wp-content - this is the folder that has your site content and deleting it will require you to restore it from backup.

Next, go and download your preferred older version from WordPress. You can view their releases on the WordPress releases archive. Extract that folder locally - not on your server - and make sure to copy files over. Copy and overwrite your wp-x files, like wp-app, wp-load and so on, and the wp-admin and wp-includes folders. Copy everything except wp-content and overwrite the versions on your site.

Now go back to your website. Log in through your admin page and perform a database update to make sure it’s formatted for your older version. Make sure you disable any auto-update features to prevent WordPress from updating without your permission.

Once everything has been rebuilt, go back and reactivate your plugins and restore any settings that were lost in the transition.

Disclaimer: Using an old version of WordPress puts you at risk. There are bots that trawl the internet looking for out-of-date sites with known security holes they can exploit. Running outdated software is a liability and this option should only ever be a very short-term stopgap.

Option 2: Use the Classic Editor Plugin

A more helpful option is to use the Classic Editor plugin. It is an official WordPress plugin that restores the previous editor without requiring you to roll back your entire WordPress installation - it also targets WordPress versions back to 4.9 and gives older setups a bit more flexibility.

However, it’s important to remember that the Classic Editor plugin’s official support window has now ended. WordPress committed to supporting it until 2024 and that deadline has passed. While the plugin may still work for now, it’s no longer actively maintained and you should not use it as a long-term answer. Security and compatibility problems may come up that will never be patched.

If you are still using the Classic Editor plugin in 2026, it’s time to consider making the switch to the block editor.

Option 3: Use the Classic Block

When WordPress 5.0 introduced the block editor, old posts were automatically wrapped in a Classic block to prevent them from breaking. You can continue editing within that Classic block, or break it apart into individual blocks at your own pace.

You can also create new posts using a Classic block to mimic the old editing experience - it’s less than ideal. But it’s an option if you’re in a pinch and need to publish something faster while you get up to speed with the block editor.

Option 4: Learn the New Editor

At the end of the day, there are quite a few benefits to the block editor. One of the biggest is basically the ability to apply individual formatting and styles to individual blocks. You can add backgrounds and embeds to blocks and rearrange them without having to bother with copying and pasting anything. Nested blocks, synced patterns and full site editing have all matured since the early days of Gutenberg, which makes the editor legitimately powerful in ways it wasn’t back in 2018.

My honest recommendation is to spend some time reading up on the block editor and playing with it. You can do quite a bit to make your blog posts more engaging and immersive, which does nothing but improve your user engagement. WordPress even lets you experiment with the editor directly on their site without needing to touch your own.

I know that it’s all new and unfamiliar. I know that you’ll have to abandon habits and knowledge you’ve built up over the years. I know that learning an entirely new skill to accomplish something you’ve been doing just fine is a pain in the a**. Here’s the thing: it will make you more capable - it will put you ahead of the curve.

The block editor is fast. It’s responsive. You gain benefits to SEO and page speed just by using it. You have an awesome amount of flexibility with what you can accomplish. Yes, maybe a few old plugins no longer work. But their functionality is now replicated by default blocks. Play, learn, improve and grow. WordPress won’t revert their editor change and at this point - years into Gutenberg’s life - the writing is well and truly on the wall. The Classic Editor plugin is already past its support end date. Sooner or later, holding out will become a genuine liability.

I say, learn and adapt now if you haven’t already. Your site will stay modern, secure and competitive. The longer you wait, the harder the transition can become.