manifest / editor / wp-pullquote-aside

Pull Quote as Aside

Render the WordPress core Pullquote block as a semantically correct <aside> instead of a <blockquote>. A pull quote is paratextual, not a quotation. See Gutenberg #11610.

by Dan Knauss · github.com/dknauss/wp-pullquote-aside

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Install

Download source zip No release zip yet

This is the repository archive. It installs, but the folder name will carry the branch suffix and updates will not flow.

Install straight from GitHub with WP-CLI:

wp plugin install https://github.com/dknauss/wp-pullquote-aside/archive/refs/heads/main.zip

No built-in updater. New versions won't appear under Dashboard → Updates. Install new releases yourself, or let Git Updater track the repository.

Readme github.com/dknauss/wp-pullquote-aside ↗

A tiny WordPress plugin that renders the core Pullquote block as a semantically correct <aside> instead of a <blockquote>, and demotes the misleading <cite> to a plain attribution.

Why a pull quote is not a block quote

A block quote belongs to the main text. It quotes an external source, so it sometimes carries a citation — which is exactly why <cite> lives inside <blockquote>.

A pull quote is the opposite kind of thing. It is paratextual: it lifts, repeats, or paraphrases a line that is already in the article and pushes it into the margin, like a gloss. It quotes nothing external and never has a citation. Its whole job is to repeat the main text so the eye can grab it.

That repetition is the crux. Because a pull quote duplicates content already on the page, anything that consumes the page without the visual styling — a screen reader, a print stylesheet, an RSS-to-Markdown pass, a JSON export — needs to be able to tell it apart and skip it. HTML already has the element for this, and the HTML5 spec all but names the case:

The element can be used for typographical effects like pull quotes or sidebars … and for other content that is considered separate from the main content of the page. — HTML, The aside element

An <aside> is a landmark (the same as role="complementary"), so assistive technology can jump over it. Mark a pull quote as an <aside> and the duplication problem solves itself.

What it does

A single render_block_core/pullquote filter rewrites the block's front-end output:

<figure class="wp-block-pullquote">       <figure class="wp-block-pullquote">
  <blockquote>                              <aside>
    <p>…</p>                       →           <p>…</p>
    <cite>…</cite>                             <p class="wp-block-pullquote__attribution">…</p>
  </blockquote>                             </aside>
</figure>                                 </figure>

Scope and caveats

This is a front-end demonstration of the correct markup. The block editor still saves and previews a <blockquote>; changing that requires a JavaScript block deprecation in core (so existing pull quotes keep validating). The real fix belongs upstream — see Gutenberg #11610. This plugin shows the correct output today.

Install

Drop wp-pullquote-aside.php into wp-content/plugins/ (or mu-plugins/) and activate. No configuration.

License

GPL-2.0-or-later.