# Editing global elements

> Global elements are reusable building blocks like buttons, cards and headings. Style them once and your changes apply everywhere they're used.

Source: https://www.zenplates.co/documentation/visual-builder/editing-global-elements (Visual builder › Designing your theme)

Global elements are the reusable components that appear again and again throughout your help center—buttons, cards, headings, links, form fields and more. The **Global elements** panel lets you define how each of these looks in one place, so a single change updates every instance across your theme.

This is the design-system layer of your theme. Where [global styles](https://www.zenplates.co/documentation/visual-builder/editing-global-styles) set the foundational colors and type, global elements define the components built on top of them.

## What you can style

Global elements are grouped by purpose:

| Group          | Elements                                                                              |
| -------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Basic**      | Avatars, badges, buttons, form fields, headings, links, paragraphs and search fields. |
| **Layout**     | Cards, containers, rows and sidebars.                                                 |
| **Navigation** | Breadcrumbs, dropdown items and navigation links.                                     |

Buttons, for example, can be styled across their standard, primary, secondary and tertiary variants and their small, medium and large sizes—mirroring the [button elements](https://www.zenplates.co/documentation/elements/buttons) in the framework.

![Editing a global button element](https://www.zenplates.co/assets/images/documentation/visual-builder/global-elements.webp)

## Choosing a variant

Some global elements, such as breadcrumbs and pagination, ship with several ready-made designs. Use **Change template** to preview the available looks and choose the one that best fits your brand as a starting point, then fine-tune it with the editing controls.

## How it relates to page elements

When you add a button or card to a page using [page elements](https://www.zenplates.co/documentation/visual-builder/adding-elements), it inherits its appearance from the matching global element. That means you can lay out a page without worrying about styling each component individually—and when you later refine a global element, every page that uses it updates at once.

To change how a single instance looks without affecting the rest, override its styles directly on the element. See [editing elements](https://www.zenplates.co/documentation/visual-builder/editing-elements).