Reading aids: how the four blocks work - Verba

Four independent blocks can sit above the article text. Each is switched on separately, any of them can stay off forever, and none depends on another.

#The rule they all share

The switch lives in Theme Options. The content lives in the post.

A block that is switched on renders nothing on a post that has no data for it, so the page never shows a heading above an empty block.

There are two exceptions. The table of contents is built from the article itself, so it appears when the text contains headings at the levels you selected. The summarize row needs nothing from the post either: it links to the article itself.

#The order on the page

From the top down: the TL;DR, the summarize row, the key points, the table of contents, then the article text. The order is fixed.

#Where each one lives

All four are on VerbaTheme OptionsSingle PostBody, each in its own group.

Summary (TL;DR)

Group Summary (TL;DR). Content comes from the Summary (TL;DR) field in the post's Editorial panel.

Summarize with AI

Group Summarize With AI. Nothing to fill in: the row links to the article.

Key points

Group Key Points. Content comes from the Key points repeater in the Editorial panel, one takeaway per row.

Table of contents

Group Table of Contents. Content comes from the article's headings.

The summary and the key points can also be written by AI on a schedule, with the AI Blog integration. See AI Blog integration.

#Heading tag and heading size

Three of the four blocks (TL;DR, key points, and table of contents) carry the same controls for their heading: the text, an optional icon, its HTML tag, and its size.

The tag is document structure: it tells search engines and screen readers whether this line is a section heading of the article. The size is only appearance.

For most posts a TL;DR isn't a section of the article, so a paragraph tag is more honest than an h2, even when you want it to look prominent. Set the tag for the structure and the size for the design.

The TL;DR is also the one block drawn as a card, so it alone has a Summary style field: which surface the card is painted on. The key points are a plain list with a mark before each row.

#Where to go next

• TL;DR summary
• Key points
• Table of contents
• Summarize with AI

The Reading bar holds a second place for the summarize action and the reading progress. Sources and citations is another editorial block, but it sits at the end of a post rather than the start, so it has its own page.

Last updated 1 Oct 2026