Quickstart ​

Getting started with BlockNote is quick and easy. All you need to do is install the package and add the React component to your app!

Installing with NPM ​

Install BlockNote with NPM by running the following command in your console:

npm install @blocknote/core @blocknote/react

Creating an Editor ​

BlockNote is meant for use with React, so creating an editor in an existing React app is easy. Using the useBlockNote hook, we can create a new editor instance, then use theBlockNoteView component to render it. You can see how to do that in the example below, where we create a new BlockNote editor inside the main App component of our React app:

import { BlockNoteEditor } from "@blocknote/core";
import { BlockNoteView, useBlockNote } from "@blocknote/react";
import "@blocknote/core/style.css";

function App() {
  // Creates a new editor instance.
  const editor: BlockNoteEditor = useBlockNote({});

  // Renders the editor instance using a React component.
  return <BlockNoteView editor={editor} />;
}

As well as BlockNoteView and useBlockNote, we import @blocknote/core/style.css to provide default styling for the editor.

Demo: Basic App Using BlockNote ​

Taking the same code, the live preview below turns it into a super simple, working app:

Next steps ​

You now know how to integrate BlockNote into your React app! However, this is just scratching the surface of what you can do with the editor.

Customizing Menus ​

You might notice that in previous examples, we've been calling useBlockNote with an empty object ({}). This object represents the editor options, which can be used to customize the editor's menus and behaviour.

To find out more about BlockNote editor options and menu customization, visit Customizing the Editor.

Interacting with the Editor Using Code ​

You also access and manipulate blocks in the editor programmatically with different editor functions.

To find out more about blocks, editor functions and manipulating the editor using code, visit Introduction to Blocks.