Gutenberg 23.5 shipped on July 1, bringing editor upgrades that change how you crop images, preview your layout, and collaborate with other editors on the same post.
Crop images without leaving the editor
The Media editor’s cropping tool now works inside the Cover block, so you can crop a background image right where you’re using it instead of editing it beforehand and re-uploading. The crop canvas is easier to work with too: a magnified view helps with fine adjustments, crop handles snap to the image’s actual pixels so edges land cleanly, and keyboard resizing now respects locked aspect ratios instead of drifting off them.
Preview your site at any width, not just three presets
Instead of clicking between Desktop, Tablet, and Mobile buttons, you can now drag the editor canvas to any width you want. The preset buttons still work if you want to jump straight to a standard size, but you can also fine-tune to an exact width and watch blocks that are set to appear or hide at specific screen sizes respond as you resize.
Real-time collaboration gets more control
If you co-edit posts with other people, you can now turn real-time collaboration off for specific post types instead of leaving it on site-wide. A bug where the code editor’s cursor jumped to the end of the content during a remote sync has also been fixed.
Smaller but useful changes
The Icon block now shows a default icon instead of an empty box when you first add it, and gained flip and rotate controls. Global Styles also picked up text-shadow support for blocks that use it.
What you need to know before updating
Gutenberg 23.5 now requires WordPress 6.9 or later. If your site is still on an older version, update WordPress first or the plugin update will not take effect. You can get the release now from the Gutenberg plugin page, or wait for these changes to reach WordPress core in a future release.
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