Getting started with Angular Rich text editor component

14 Nov 202222 minutes to read

This section explains the steps to create a simple Rich Text Editor component and configure its available functionalities in Angular.

Getting Started with Angular CLI

The following section explains the steps required to create a simple angular-cli application and how to configure Rich Text Editor component.

To get start quickly with Angular Rich Text Editor using CLI and Schematics, refer to the video below.

Prerequisites

To get started with Syncfusion Angular UI Components, make sure that you have compatible versions of Angular and TypeScript.

  • Angular : 4+
  • TypeScript : 2.6+

Setting up an Angular project

Angular provides an easiest way to setup project using Angular CLI Angular CLI tool.

Install the CLI application globally in your machine.

  npm install -g @angular/cli

Create a new application

  ng new syncfusion-angular-app

Once you have executed the above command you may ask for following options,

  • Would you like to add Angular routing?
  • Which stylesheet format would you like to use?

By default it install the CSS style based application. To setup with SCSS, add --style=SCSS suffix on creating project.

Example code snippet.

  ng new syncfusion-angular-app --style=SCSS

Use below command to Navigate into the created project folder.

  cd syncfusion-angular-app

Installing Syncfusion Rich Text Editor package

Syncfusion packages are distributed in npm as @syncfusion scoped packages. You can get all the Angular Syncfusion package from npm link.

Currently, Syncfusion provides two types of package structures for Angular components,

  1. Ivy library distribution package format
  2. Angular compatibility compiler(Angular’s legacy compilation and rendering pipeline) package.

Ivy library distribution package

Syncfusion Angular packages(>=20.2.36) has been moved to the Ivy distribution to support the Angular Ivy rendering engine and the package are compatible with Angular version 12 and above. To download the package use the below command.

Add @syncfusion/ej2-angular-richtexteditor package to the application.

npm install @syncfusion/ej2-angular-richtexteditor --save

Angular compatibility compiled package(ngcc)

For Angular version below 12, you can use the legacy (ngcc) package of the Syncfusion Angular components. To download the ngcc package use the below.

Add @syncfusion/ej2-angular-richtexteditor@ngcc package to the application.

npm install @syncfusion/ej2-angular-richtexteditor@ngcc --save

To mention the ngcc package in the package.json file, add the suffix -ngcc with the package version as below.

@syncfusion/ej2-angular-richtexteditor:"20.2.38-ngcc"

Note: If the ngcc tag is not specified while installing the package, the Ivy Library Package will be installed and this package will throw a warning.

Adding Rich Text Editor module

Once you have successfully installed the Rich Text Editor package, corresponding component modules are ready to configure in your application from the installed location. Syncfusion Angular package provides two different types of ngModules.

Refer to Ng-Module to learn about ngModules.

Refer to the following snippet to import the RichTextEditorModule in app.module.ts from the @syncfusion/ej2-angular-richtexteditor.

import { BrowserModule } from '@angular/platform-browser';
import { NgModule } from '@angular/core';

import { AppRoutingModule } from './app-routing.module';
import { AppComponent } from './app.component';
// Imported Syncfusion RichTextEditorModule from Rich Text Editor package
import { RichTextEditorModule } from '@syncfusion/ej2-angular-richtexteditor';

@NgModule({
  declarations: [
    AppComponent
  ],
  imports: [
    BrowserModule,
    AppRoutingModule,
    // Registering EJ2 Rich Text Editor Module
    RichTextEditorModule
  ],
  providers: [],
  bootstrap: [AppComponent]
})
export class AppModule { }

Adding Rich Text Editor component

Add the Rich Text Editor component snippet in app.component.ts as follows.

import { Component } from '@angular/core';
import { ToolbarService, LinkService, ImageService, HtmlEditorService } from '@syncfusion/ej2-angular-richtexteditor';
@Component({
  selector: 'app-root',
  template: `<ejs-richtexteditor id='defaultRTE'>
  <ng-template #valueTemplate>
  <p>The Rich Text Editor component is WYSIWYG ("what you see is what you get") editor that provides the best user experience to create and update the content.
  Users can format their content using standard toolbar commands.</p>
  <p><b>Key features:</b></p>
  <ul><li><p>Provides &lt;IFRAME&gt; and &lt;DIV&gt; modes.</p></li>
  <li><p>Capable of handling markdown editing.</p></li>
  <li><p>Contains a modular library to load the necessary functionality on demand.</p></li>
  <li><p>Provides a fully customizable toolbar.</p></li>
  <li><p>Provides HTML view to edit the source directly for developers.</p></li>
  <li><p>Supports third-party library integration.</p></li>
  <li><p>Allows preview of modified content before saving it.</p></li>
  <li><p>Handles images, hyperlinks, video, hyperlinks, uploads, etc.</p></li>
  <li><p>Contains undo/redo manager. </p></li>
  <li><p>Creates bulleted and numbered lists.</p></li>
  </ul>
  </ng-template>
  </ejs-richtexteditor>`,
  providers: [ToolbarService, LinkService, ImageService, HtmlEditorService]
})

export class AppComponent {

}

Adding CSS reference

The following CSS files are available in ../node_modules/@syncfusion package folder. This can be referenced in [src/styles.css] using following code.

      @import '../node_modules/@syncfusion/ej2-base/styles/material.css';
      @import '../node_modules/@syncfusion/ej2-icons/styles/material.css';
      @import '../node_modules/@syncfusion/ej2-buttons/styles/material.css';
      @import '../node_modules/@syncfusion/ej2-splitbuttons/styles/material.css';
      @import '../node_modules/@syncfusion/ej2-inputs/styles/material.css';
      @import '../node_modules/@syncfusion/ej2-lists/styles/material.css';
      @import '../node_modules/@syncfusion/ej2-navigations/styles/material.css';
      @import '../node_modules/@syncfusion/ej2-popups/styles/material.css';
      @import '../node_modules/@syncfusion/ej2-richtexteditor/styles/material.css';

The Custom Resource Generator (CRG) is an online web tool, which can be used to generate the custom script and styles for a set of specific components.
This web tool is useful to combine the required component scripts and styles in a single file.

Running the application

Run the ng serve command in command window, it will serve your application and you can open the browser window. Output will appear as follows.

import { Component } from '@angular/core';
import { ToolbarService, LinkService, ImageService, HtmlEditorService } from '@syncfusion/ej2-angular-richtexteditor';
@Component({
  selector: 'app-root',
  template: `<ejs-richtexteditor id='defaultRTE'>
  <ng-template #valueTemplate>
  <p>The Rich Text Editor component is WYSIWYG ("what you see is what you get") editor that provides the best user experience to create and update the content.
  Users can format their content using standard toolbar commands.</p>
  <p><b>Key features:</b></p>
  <ul><li><p>Provides &lt;IFRAME&gt; and &lt;DIV&gt; modes.</p></li>
  <li><p>Capable of handling markdown editing.</p></li>
  <li><p>Contains a modular library to load the necessary functionality on demand.</p></li>
  <li><p>Provides a fully customizable toolbar.</p></li>
  <li><p>Provides HTML view to edit the source directly for developers.</p></li>
  <li><p>Supports third-party library integration.</p></li>
  <li><p>Allows preview of modified content before saving it.</p></li>
  <li><p>Handles images, hyperlinks, video, hyperlinks, uploads, etc.</p></li>
  <li><p>Contains undo/redo manager. </p></li>
  <li><p>Creates bulleted and numbered lists.</p></li>
  </ul>
  </ng-template>
  </ejs-richtexteditor>`,
  providers: [ToolbarService, LinkService, ImageService, HtmlEditorService]
})

export class AppComponent {

}
import { NgModule } from '@angular/core';
import { BrowserModule } from '@angular/platform-browser';
import { RichTextEditorAllModule } from '@syncfusion/ej2-angular-richtexteditor';
import { AppComponent } from './app.component';
import { DialogModule } from '@syncfusion/ej2-angular-popups';

/**
 * Module
 */
@NgModule({
    imports: [
        BrowserModule,
        RichTextEditorAllModule,
        DialogModule
    ],
    declarations: [AppComponent],
    bootstrap: [AppComponent]
})
export class AppModule { }
import { platformBrowserDynamic } from '@angular/platform-browser-dynamic';
import { enableProdMode } from '@angular/core';
import { AppModule } from './app.module';

enableProdMode();
platformBrowserDynamic().bootstrapModule(AppModule);

Initialize Rich Text Editor from <iframe> element

The Rich Text Editor’s content is placed in an iframe and isolated from the rest of the page.

Initialize the Rich Text Editor on div element and set the enable field iframeSettings property to true.

import { Component } from '@angular/core';
import { ToolbarService, LinkService, ImageService, HtmlEditorService } from '@syncfusion/ej2-angular-richtexteditor';
@Component({
  selector: 'app-root',
  template: `<ejs-richtexteditor id='iframeRTE' [toolbarSettings]='tools' [iframeSettings]='iframe' [height]='height'>
  <ng-template #valueTemplate>
  <p>The Rich Text Editor component is WYSIWYG ("what you see is what you get") editor
        that provides the best user experience to create and update the content.
            Users can format their content using standard toolbar commands.</p>

            <p><b>Key features:</b></p>

            <ul><li><p>Provides &lt;IFRAME&gt; and &lt;DIV&gt; modes</p></li>
            <li><p>Capable of handling markdown editing.</p></li>
            <li><p>Contains a modular library to load the necessary functionality on demand.</p></li>
            <li><p>Provides a fully customizable toolbar.</p></li>
            <li><p>Provides HTML view to edit the source directly for developers.</p></li>
            <li><p>Supports third-party library integration.</p></li>
            <li><p>Allows preview of modified content before saving it.</p></li>
            <li><p>Handles images, hyperlinks, video, hyperlinks, uploads, etc.</p></li>
            <li><p>Contains undo/redo manager.</p></li>
            <li><p>Creates bulleted and numbered lists.</p></li>
            </ul>
  </ng-template>
  </ejs-richtexteditor>`,
  providers: [ToolbarService, LinkService, ImageService, HtmlEditorService]
})

export class AppComponent {
        public tools: object = {
            items: ['Undo', 'Redo', '|',
                'Bold', 'Italic', 'Underline', 'StrikeThrough', '|',
                'FontName', 'FontSize', 'FontColor', 'BackgroundColor', '|',
                'SubScript', 'SuperScript', '|',
                'LowerCase', 'UpperCase', '|',
                'Formats', 'Alignments', '|', 'OrderedList', 'UnorderedList', '|',
                'Indent', 'Outdent', '|', 'CreateLink',
                'Image', '|', 'ClearFormat', 'Print', 'SourceCode', '|', 'FullScreen']
        };
        public iframe: object = { enable: true };
        public height: number = 500;
}
import { NgModule } from '@angular/core';
import { BrowserModule } from '@angular/platform-browser';
import { RichTextEditorAllModule } from '@syncfusion/ej2-angular-richtexteditor';
import { AppComponent } from './app.component';
import { DialogModule } from '@syncfusion/ej2-angular-popups';

/**
 * Module
 */
@NgModule({
    imports: [
        BrowserModule,
        RichTextEditorAllModule,
        DialogModule
    ],
    declarations: [AppComponent],
    bootstrap: [AppComponent]
})
export class AppModule { }
import { platformBrowserDynamic } from '@angular/platform-browser-dynamic';
import { enableProdMode } from '@angular/core';
import { AppModule } from './app.module';

enableProdMode();
platformBrowserDynamic().bootstrapModule(AppModule);

Module Injection

To create Rich Text Editor with additional features, inject the required modules. The following modules are used to extend Rich Text Editor’s basic functionality.

  • Toolbar - Inject this module to use Toolbar feature.
  • Link - Inject this module to use link feature in Rich Text Editor.
  • Image- Inject this module to use image feature in Rich Text Editor.
  • Table- Inject this module to use table feature in Rich Text Editor.
  • Count - Inject this module to use character count in Rich Text Editor.
  • HtmlEditor - Inject this module to use Rich Text Editor as html editor.
  • MarkdownEditor-Inject this module to use Rich Text Editor as markdown editor.
  • QuickToolbar - Inject this module to use quick toolbar feature for the target element.
  • Resize - Inject this module to use resize feature in Rich Text Editor.
  • FileManager - Inject this module to use file browser feature in Rich Text Editor.
  • PasteCleanup - Inject this module to use paste cleanup feature in Rich Text Editor.

These modules should be injected into the provider section of AppModule.

Configure the Toolbar

Configure the toolbar with custom tools using items field of toolbarSettings property in your application.

import { Component } from '@angular/core';
import { ToolbarService, LinkService, ImageService, HtmlEditorService } from '@syncfusion/ej2-angular-richtexteditor';
@Component({
  selector: 'app-root',
  template: `<ejs-richtexteditor id='rteTool' [toolbarSettings]='tools'>
  <ng-template #valueTemplate>
  <p>The Rich Text Editor triggers events based on its actions. </p>
    <p> The events can be used as an extension point to perform custom operations.</p>
    <ul>
        <li>created - Triggers when the component is rendered.</li>
        <li>change - Triggers only when RTE is blurred and changes are done to the content.</li>
        <li>focus - Triggers when RTE is focused in.</li>
        <li>blur - Triggers when RTE is focused out.</li>
        <li>actionBegin - Triggers before command execution using toolbar items or executeCommand method.</li>
        <li>actionComplete - Triggers after command execution using toolbar items or executeCommand method.</li>
        <li>destroyed – Triggers when the component is destroyed.</li>
    </ul>
  </ng-template>
  </ejs-richtexteditor>`,
  providers: [ToolbarService, LinkService, ImageService, HtmlEditorService]
})

export class AppComponent {
  public tools: object = {
      items: ['Undo', 'Redo', '|',
          'Bold', 'Italic', 'Underline', 'StrikeThrough', '|',
          'FontName', 'FontSize', 'FontColor', 'BackgroundColor', '|',
          'SubScript', 'SuperScript', '|',
          'LowerCase', 'UpperCase', '|',
          'Formats', 'Alignments', '|', 'OrderedList', 'UnorderedList', '|',
          'Indent', 'Outdent', '|', 'CreateLink',
          'Image', '|', 'ClearFormat', 'Print', 'SourceCode', '|', 'FullScreen']
  };
}
import { NgModule } from '@angular/core';
import { BrowserModule } from '@angular/platform-browser';
import { RichTextEditorAllModule } from '@syncfusion/ej2-angular-richtexteditor';
import { AppComponent } from './app.component';
import { DialogModule } from '@syncfusion/ej2-angular-popups';

/**
 * Module
 */
@NgModule({
    imports: [
        BrowserModule,
        RichTextEditorAllModule,
        DialogModule
    ],
    declarations: [AppComponent],
    bootstrap: [AppComponent]
})
export class AppModule { }
import { platformBrowserDynamic } from '@angular/platform-browser-dynamic';
import { enableProdMode } from '@angular/core';
import { AppModule } from './app.module';

enableProdMode();
platformBrowserDynamic().bootstrapModule(AppModule);

The image module inserts an image into Rich Text Editor’s content area, and the link module links external resources such as website URLs, to selected text in the Rich Text Editor’s content, respectively.

The link inject module adds a link icon to the toolbar and the image inject module adds an image icon to the toolbar.

Specifies the items to be rendered in the quick toolbar based on the target element such image, link, and text element. The quick toolbar opens to customize the element by clicking the target element.

import { Component } from '@angular/core';
import { ToolbarService, LinkService, ImageService, HtmlEditorService, QuickToolbarService } from '@syncfusion/ej2-angular-richtexteditor';
@Component({
    selector: 'app-root',
    template: `<ejs-richtexteditor id='defaultRTE' [toolbarSettings]='tools' [quickToolbarSettings]='quickTools'>
    <ng-template #valueTemplate>
      <p>The Rich Text Editor triggers events based on its actions. </p>
      <p> The events can be used as an extension point to perform custom operations.</p>
      <ul>
          <li>created - Triggers when the component is rendered.</li>
          <li>change - Triggers only when RTE is blurred and changes are done to the content.</li>
          <li>focus - Triggers when RTE is focused in.</li>
          <li>blur - Triggers when RTE is focused out.</li>
          <li>actionBegin - Triggers before command execution using toolbar items or executeCommand method.</li>
          <li>actionComplete - Triggers after command execution using toolbar items or executeCommand method.</li>
          <li>destroyed – Triggers when the component is destroyed.</li>
      </ul>
    </ng-template>
    </ejs-richtexteditor>`,
    providers: [ToolbarService, LinkService, ImageService, HtmlEditorService, QuickToolbarService]
})
export class AppComponent  {
    public tools: object = {
        items: ['Undo', 'Redo', '|',
            'Bold', 'Italic', 'Underline', 'StrikeThrough', '|',
            'FontName', 'FontSize', 'FontColor', 'BackgroundColor', '|',
            'SubScript', 'SuperScript', '|',
            'LowerCase', 'UpperCase', '|',
            'Formats', 'Alignments', '|', 'OrderedList', 'UnorderedList', '|',
            'Indent', 'Outdent', '|', 'CreateLink',
            'Image', '|', 'ClearFormat', 'Print', 'SourceCode', '|', 'FullScreen']
    };
    public quickTools: object = {
        image: [
            'Replace', 'Align', 'Caption', 'Remove', 'InsertLink', '-', 'Display', 'AltText', 'Dimension']
    };
}
import { NgModule } from '@angular/core';
import { BrowserModule } from '@angular/platform-browser';
import { RichTextEditorAllModule } from '@syncfusion/ej2-angular-richtexteditor';
import { AppComponent } from './app.component';
import { DialogModule } from '@syncfusion/ej2-angular-popups';

/**
 * Module
 */
@NgModule({
    imports: [
        BrowserModule,
        RichTextEditorAllModule,
        DialogModule
    ],
    declarations: [AppComponent],
    bootstrap: [AppComponent]
})
export class AppModule { }
import { platformBrowserDynamic } from '@angular/platform-browser-dynamic';
import { enableProdMode } from '@angular/core';
import { AppModule } from './app.module';

enableProdMode();
platformBrowserDynamic().bootstrapModule(AppModule);

Retrieve the formatted content

To retrieve the editor contents, use the value property of Rich Text Editor.

  let rteValue: string = this.rteObj.value;

Or, you can use the getHtml public method to retrieve the Rich Text Editor content.

  let rteValue: string = this.rteObj.getHtml();

To fetch the Rich Text Editor’s text content, use getText method.

  
  let rteValue: string = this.rteObj.contentModule.getText();

Retrieve the number of characters in the Rich Text Editor

To get the maximum number of characters in the Rich Text Editor’s content, use getCharCount

  let rteCount: number = this.rteObj.getCharCount();

You can refer to our Angular Rich Text Editor feature tour page for its groundbreaking feature representations. You can also explore our Angular Rich Text Editor example to knows how to render and configure the rich text editor tools.

See Also