How to Add Image Captions in Squarespace Fluid Engine?
Captions are a minor detail, but they serve a bigger purpose in web design. Whether you’re just giving credit to a photographer, providing more context, or telling a story, captions add clarity, access, and professionalism.
If you’ve made the switch to Squarespace’s new Fluid Engine, you may have noticed something is missing: the caption field under Image Blocks has disappeared. Along the way, you gain greater flexibility in how to arrange images, but you also lose one of the easiest tools for placing textual descriptions behind images.
The good news? With some hacking, you can replicate captions in Fluid Engine easily, to keep your site neat and your images well-supported.
Quick Answer: Captions Have Been Removed from Image Blocks
As of the latest version of Squarespace 7.1 with Fluid Engine, the native caption field inside Image Blocks is no longer available.
In the Classic Editor, you could:
Add a caption to an image directly.
Choose whether it appeared below, as an overlay, or hidden.
In Fluid Engine, that caption input is gone entirely.
Why Squarespace Removed It
Fluid Engine was built for total drag-and-drop layout freedom, giving creators full control over their content grid. However, that shift came with trade-offs:
| Feature | Classic Editor | Fluid Engine |
|---|---|---|
| Built-in Caption Field | Yes | No |
| Caption Overlay Option | Yes | No |
| Caption Below Image | Yes | No |
| Manual Caption Workaround | Not needed | Required |
How to Add Image Captions in Fluid Engine (Workaround)
While the native field is gone, you can easily replicate the functionality with a bit of manual layout and styling.
Step-by-Step:
Insert an Image Block using Fluid Engine.
Drag in a Text Block directly underneath the image.
Type your desired caption.
Style it using italic text, lighter color, and smaller font to visually separate it from body content.
Pro Styling Tip (with CSS)
To create a consistent caption style across your site, use this custom CSS:
.caption-text {
font-size: 14px;
color: #888;
font-style: italic;
text-align: center;
margin-top: 8px;
}
Then, inside your Text Block, enter:
<p class="caption-text">Photo by Jane Smith</p>
This ensures uniform styling across all your captions—even if you add 20 on a page.
Bonus Tip: What About Gallery Blocks?
If you use a Gallery Section or Gallery Page, Squarespace still supports captions:
Click each image → you’ll see a “Title” and “Description” field.
These can display as captions, depending on your design settings.
But for standalone images in Fluid Engine? You'll need to use the Text Block method.
Final Thoughts
Squarespace’s Fluid Engine sacrifices built-in captions in favor of design flexibility, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t have captions. And by combining with styled Text Blocks to apply inline styling (or custom CSS), you're free to apply those consistent-looking captions to your site.
Of course, for galleries, you have native caption functionality through titles and descriptions, but for individual images, having the manual option to control them will keep your images clear, readable, and professional.
At the end of the day, captions do more than serve as decoration; they provide credibility and context to your visuals. Use this easy workaround, and you too can have the best of both worlds: the freedom of Fluid Engine and the functionality of classic Squarespace captions.
Frequently Asked Questions
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The built-in caption field was removed in Squarespace 7.1’s Fluid Engine. Unlike the Classic Editor, you do not have a native feature to add or show captions in the Image Block interface anymore.
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Yes. You will have to create a Text Block yourself beneath your image and style it to appear like a caption. This provides the same functionality, but with more control over layout and design.
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It’s easy to make a custom caption style with plain ol’ CSS and then apply it as a class through your Text Blocks. That makes all captions have the same font size, color, and space.
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Yes. If you're using Galleries, you'll continue to see Title and Description fields when you edit images. Possible also as captions, according to the gallery layout.
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Fluid Engine is centered around dynamic, drag-and-drop layouts. Although it provides more flexibility, it removes some of the structure-based features (like native captions), requiring manual workarounds for consistency.
