# Modular content fields The **Modular Content** field is used to define a dynamic area for richer page layouts. For example, in a landing page, defining a Modular Content field allows the writer to choose between adding a text section, a carousel, or a call-to-action. This gives the writer the freedom to compose a landing page by alternating and ordering as many of these choices as needed. (Video content) You can use Modular content to define dynamic layouts in any of your models: blog posts, landing pages, case studies, tutorials, or any place you want to give content writers a choice between different template options. Developers are in charge of defining which elements writers can use to compose content for a specific modular content field. You can think of those as "low-level" models, called *Block models*. Authors, to compose their dynamic content, will be able to add and reorder these blocks as they prefer. ## How to build a Modular content editor Suppose we have an *Article* model, and we want to add a modular content field to manage its content. The first step is to decide the different kinds of basic blocks you want your authors to alternate. In this case, we want our content to be a flexible composition of: - Text - Quotes - Videos - Text + Image blocks To achieve this result, first, we create the Article model, and add a Modular content field to it: (Image content) In the*Validations* tab,you can choose which blocks will populate your modular content field. Let's add the Quote block: (Image content) ## Create and edit a block If you go to the *Blocks* tab in the Schema area, you will see all the blocks that you have already created, and you can create a new one: (Image content) Blocks are just a composition of fields, just like ordinary models. In our case, we want the *Quote Block* to be made of two fields: one containing the actual quote, and another containing the author. You can click on the "Create new block" button on the bottom left to create a new block. In this case, we'll add a multi-paragraph text field to contain the text of the quote, and a single-line string text to display the name of the quote's author. If this block is used in one of your Models, you will see a notice. For example, we see that our *Quote* blockis used in the *Product* modular content field, which is part of the *Article* model. (Image content) If you go to your Content area now, you should see a new option called "Quote" in the modular content field's dropdown. (Image content) ## Bulk Actions Managing Modular Content is efficient with common Bulk Actions. You can easily select multiple Modular Content items and perform actions all at once from the action bar. (Video content) Each Modular Content Block includes a checkbox for easy selection, and you can perform bulk actions such as: - Select All / Invert Selection - Expand / Collapse selected blocks - Copy multiple blocks - Delete selected items (Video content) The contextual submenu makes managing blocks in the UI equally simple, with an improved flow to: - Copy & Paste - Duplicate - Move - Delete, and - Add Blocks ## Reusing block models With these building blocks, you can start to design and develop a modular template that matches models and modular blocks in DatoCMS' schema. Once you have set up the different blocks, you can reuse them across different models. This means that the exact same block structure is reused across modular contents and models. If you modify the block in one place, the changes will be reflected across all modular contents. This will effectively enable you to develop a modular template that will allow editors to build complex pages just by creating new records in the CMS. ## Single vs Multiple blocks In your schema, there are two flavors of a Modular Content field you can opt for: Single Block and Multiple Blocks: (Image content) The Single Block allows authors to slot in just one block within the field, while the Multiple Blocks provides the flexibility to insert several. Hence, when you're fetching the value tied to modular content, you're either looking at an array of blocks or a single block. In the case of Single Block, you can still allow the author to insert different types of blocks depending on the context, but always one at a time. ## Reusing fields across models with "Frameless" Single-block As a project's complexity scales up, we frequently encounter the need to reuse subsets of fields across various models. Redundantly duplicating these fields or manually keeping them in sync isn't an appealing approach. Let's say you have different content types like "Blog Post," "News Article," and "Product Review." Each of these models may have common fields like title, author, and tags. However, they will also have specific fields like "Body" for blog posts, "Summary" for news articles, and "Rating" for product reviews. Despite the differences, they all share a common structure with some overlapping fields. In these scenarios, we can effectively leverage the reusability of block models coupled with the "frameless" display mode of the Modular Content (Single Block) field to achieve our goal. First, let's create a new type of block model. Let's call it "Bloggable", and define all the shared fields within it: (Image content) At this point, in all the "Blog Post," "News Article," and "Product Review" models, we should incorporate a Modular Content (Single block) field. The field should be arranged as follows: - It should only have "Bloggable" as its associated block model; - It should have the Required validation active; - The "Frameless" presentation mode should be active. (Video content) The "Frameless" presentation mode will conceal the Modular Content field from the authoring interface, and only show the fields of the block model **as if they're an intrinsic part of the model itself**: (Video content) ## Tutorials If you're curious to see the full power of Modular Content fields in action, take a look at this video tutorials which covers everything you need to build a customizable landing page made of different reusable blocks. [ (Image content) Intro to the Modular Content Field Play video » ](https://www.datocms.com/user-guides/content-modeling/intro-to-the-modular-content-field.md) [ (Image content) Building Pages and Deep Dive into Modular Content Play video » ](https://www.datocms.com/user-guides/content-management/building-pages-and-deep-dive-into-modular-content.md) [ (Image content) Working Together - Creating Our First Case Study Play video » ](https://www.datocms.com/user-guides/content-management/working-together-creating-our-first-case-study.md) [ (Image content) Build a dynamic landing page with Next.js and Tailwind CSS Play video » ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=it5nNneptgM) ## Related content in "Content modelling" - [Introduction to Content Modeling](https://www.datocms.com/docs/content-modelling.md) - [Single instance models](https://www.datocms.com/docs/content-modelling/single-instance.md) - [Record ordering](https://www.datocms.com/docs/content-modelling/record-ordering.md) - [Hierarchical sorting (Tree-like collections)](https://www.datocms.com/docs/content-modelling/hierarchical-sorting.md) - [Record block limits and byte size limits](https://www.datocms.com/docs/content-modelling/record-block-limits-and-byte-size-limits.md) - [Blocks](https://www.datocms.com/docs/content-modelling/blocks.md) - [Modular content fields](https://www.datocms.com/docs/content-modelling/modular-content.md) - [Structured text fields](https://www.datocms.com/docs/content-modelling/structured-text.md) - [Link fields](https://www.datocms.com/docs/content-modelling/links.md) - [SEO fields](https://www.datocms.com/docs/content-modelling/seo-fields.md) - [Slugs and permalinks](https://www.datocms.com/docs/content-modelling/slug-permalinks.md) - [External video field](https://www.datocms.com/docs/content-modelling/external-video-field.md) - [Validations](https://www.datocms.com/docs/content-modelling/validations.md) - [Data consistency: key concepts and implications](https://www.datocms.com/docs/content-modelling/data-migration.md)