Getting started in EJ2 TypeScript Rich Text Editor control

30 Jan 202613 minutes to read

This section explains the steps to create a simple Rich Text Editor and demonstrates the basic usage of the Rich Text Editor control using a Vite-based TypeScript project scaffolded with Vite 7.

This guide uses Vite for bundling and development. Scaffold the project with npm create vite@7 and choose the vanilla framework with the typescript variant. It requires Node 24.13.0 or higher. For more information about Vite and its features, refer to the Vite documentation.

Dependencies

The following minimum dependencies are required to use the Rich Text Editor.

|-- @syncfusion/ej2-richtexteditor
    |-- @syncfusion/ej2-base
    |-- @syncfusion/ej2-buttons
    |-- @syncfusion/ej2-data
    |-- @syncfusion/ej2-inputs
    |-- @syncfusion/ej2-lists
    |-- @syncfusion/ej2-navigations
    |-- @syncfusion/ej2-popups
    |-- @syncfusion/ej2-splitbuttons
    |-- @syncfusion/ej2-filemanager

Set up development environment

Run the following commands to set up a Typescript application:

npm create vite@latest my-app

To set-up a Typescript application in TypeScript environment, run the following command.

npm create vite@latest my-app -- --template vanilla-ts
cd my-app
npm run dev

Adding Syncfusion® Rich Text Editor packages

All the available Essential® JS 2 packages are published in npmjs.com public registry.
To install Rich Text Editor component, use the following command

npm install @syncfusion/ej2-richtexteditor

Import the Syncfusion CSS styles

Add the following imports inside the ~/src/styles.css file to include the tailwind3 theme styles:

@import '../node_modules/@syncfusion/ej2-base/styles/tailwind3.css';
@import '../node_modules/@syncfusion/ej2-buttons/styles/tailwind3.css';
@import '../node_modules/@syncfusion/ej2-inputs/styles/tailwind3.css';
@import '../node_modules/@syncfusion/ej2-lists/styles/tailwind3.css';
@import '../node_modules/@syncfusion/ej2-navigations/styles/tailwind3.css';
@import '../node_modules/@syncfusion/ej2-popups/styles/tailwind3.css';
@import '../node_modules/@syncfusion/ej2-splitbuttons/styles/tailwind3.css';
@import '../node_modules/@syncfusion/ej2-richtexteditor/styles/tailwind3.css';;

You can check out the themes section to know more about built-in themes and CSS reference for individual controls.

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.
  • HtmlEditor - Inject this module to use Rich Text Editor as html editor.
  • QuickToolbar - Inject this module to use quick toolbar feature for the target element.

These modules should be injected into the Rich Text Editor using the RichTextEditor.Inject method.

Additional feature modules are available here

Adding Rich Text Editor control

To get started, add the Rich Text Editor control in main.ts and index.html files. Rich Text Editor can be initialized through div element or textarea element.

Place the following Rich Text Editor code in the main.ts file.

import './style.css';
import { RichTextEditor, Toolbar, Link, Image, HtmlEditor, QuickToolbar } from '@syncfusion/ej2-richtexteditor';
RichTextEditor.Inject(Toolbar, Link, Image, HtmlEditor, QuickToolbar);

const editor: RichTextEditor = new RichTextEditor({ });
editor.appendTo('#editor');

Rich Text Editor can be initialized on div element as shown below

[src/index.html]

<!doctype html>
<html lang="en">
  <head>
    <meta charset="UTF-8" />
    <link rel="icon" type="image/svg+xml" href="/vite.svg" />
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0" />
    <title>Syncfusion Typescript Rich Text Editor</title>
  </head>
  <body>
    <div id="editor"></div>
    <script type="module" src="/src/main.ts"></script>
  </body>
</html>

Output will be displayed as follows

import { RichTextEditor, Toolbar, Link, Image, HtmlEditor, QuickToolbar } from '@syncfusion/ej2-richtexteditor';
RichTextEditor.Inject(Toolbar, Link, Image, HtmlEditor, QuickToolbar);

const editor: RichTextEditor = new RichTextEditor({ });
editor.appendTo('#editor');
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">

<head>
    <title>Syncfusion Typescript Rich Text Editor</title>
    <meta charset="utf-8" />
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0" />
    <meta name="description" content="Typescript UI Controls" />
    <meta name="author" content="Syncfusion" />
    <link href="index.css" rel="stylesheet" />
    <link href="https://cdn.syncfusion.com/ej2/32.1.19/ej2-base/styles/tailwind3.css" rel="stylesheet" />
    <link href="https://cdn.syncfusion.com/ej2/32.1.19/ej2-richtexteditor/styles/tailwind3.css" rel="stylesheet" />
    <link href="https://cdn.syncfusion.com/ej2/32.1.19/ej2-inputs/styles/tailwind3.css" rel="stylesheet" />
    <link href="https://cdn.syncfusion.com/ej2/32.1.19/ej2-lists/styles/tailwind3.css" rel="stylesheet" />
    <link href="https://cdn.syncfusion.com/ej2/32.1.19/ej2-navigations/styles/tailwind3.css" rel="stylesheet" />
    <link href="https://cdn.syncfusion.com/ej2/32.1.19/ej2-popups/styles/tailwind3.css" rel="stylesheet" />
     <link href="https://cdn.syncfusion.com/ej2/32.1.19/ej2-buttons/styles/tailwind3.css" rel="stylesheet" />
    <link href="https://cdn.syncfusion.com/ej2/32.1.19/ej2-splitbuttons/styles/tailwind3.css" rel="stylesheet" />
    <script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/systemjs/0.19.38/system.js"></script>
    <script src="systemjs.config.js"></script>
<script src="https://cdn.syncfusion.com/ej2/syncfusion-helper.js" type ="text/javascript"></script>
</head>

<body>
    <div id='loader'>Loading....</div>
    <div id='container'>
        <div id='editor'></div>
    </div>
</body>

</html>

Configure the Toolbar

Configure the toolbar with the tools using items field of the toolbarSettings property as your application requires. Below are some basic toolbar items added for reference.

Place the following Rich Text Editor code in the main.ts file.

import './style.css';
import { RichTextEditor, Toolbar, Link, Image, HtmlEditor, QuickToolbar } from '@syncfusion/ej2-richtexteditor';
RichTextEditor.Inject(Toolbar, Link, Image, HtmlEditor, QuickToolbar);

const editor: RichTextEditor = new RichTextEditor({
  toolbarSettings: {
      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']
    }
});
editor.appendTo('#editor');

| and - can insert a vertical and horizontal separator lines in the toolbar.

To Run the application

The quickstart project is configured to compile and run the application in the browser. Use the following command to run the application.

npm run dev

Replace the contents of main.ts with the code below to initialize the Rich Text Editor with default content.
This adds default content to the editor so you can verify its rendering and basic functionality.

[src/main.ts]

import './style.css';
import { RichTextEditor, Toolbar, Link, Image, HtmlEditor, QuickToolbar } from '@syncfusion/ej2-richtexteditor';
RichTextEditor.Inject(Toolbar, Link, Image, HtmlEditor, QuickToolbar);

const editor: RichTextEditor = new RichTextEditor({
    toolbarSettings: {
      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']
    },
    value: '<p>The Rich Text Editor control 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 IFRAME and DIV 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></ul>'
 });
editor.appendTo('#editor');

Output will be displayed as follows

import { RichTextEditor, Toolbar, Link, Image, HtmlEditor, QuickToolbar } from '@syncfusion/ej2-richtexteditor';

RichTextEditor.Inject(Toolbar, Link, Image, HtmlEditor, QuickToolbar);

const editor: RichTextEditor = new RichTextEditor({
  toolbarSettings: {
      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']
    },
    value: `<p>The Syncfusion Rich Text Editor, a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor, is a user interface that allows you to create, edit, and format rich text content. You can try out a demo of this editor here.</p><p><b>Key features:</b></p><ul><li><p>Provides &lt;IFRAME&gt; and &lt;DIV&gt; modes.</p></li><li><p>Bulleted and numbered lists.</p></li><li><p>Handles images, hyperlinks, videos, hyperlinks, uploads, etc.</p></li><li><p>Contains undo/redo manager. </p></li></ul><div style='display: inline-block; width: 60%; vertical-align: top; cursor: auto;'><img alt='Sky with sun' src='https://cdn.syncfusion.com/ej2/richtexteditor-resources/RTE-Overview.png' width='309' style='min-width: 10px; min-height: 10px; width: 309px; height: 174px;' class='e-rte-image e-imginline e-rte-drag-image' height='174' /></div>`,
});
editor.appendTo('#editor');
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">

<head>
    <title>Syncfusion Typescript Rich Text Editor</title>
    <meta charset="utf-8" />
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0" />
    <meta name="description" content="Typescript UI Controls" />
    <meta name="author" content="Syncfusion" />
    <link href="index.css" rel="stylesheet" />
    <link href="https://cdn.syncfusion.com/ej2/32.1.19/ej2-base/styles/tailwind3.css" rel="stylesheet" />
    <link href="https://cdn.syncfusion.com/ej2/32.1.19/ej2-richtexteditor/styles/tailwind3.css" rel="stylesheet" />
    <link href="https://cdn.syncfusion.com/ej2/32.1.19/ej2-inputs/styles/tailwind3.css" rel="stylesheet" />
    <link href="https://cdn.syncfusion.com/ej2/32.1.19/ej2-lists/styles/tailwind3.css" rel="stylesheet" />
    <link href="https://cdn.syncfusion.com/ej2/32.1.19/ej2-navigations/styles/tailwind3.css" rel="stylesheet" />
    <link href="https://cdn.syncfusion.com/ej2/32.1.19/ej2-popups/styles/tailwind3.css" rel="stylesheet" />
     <link href="https://cdn.syncfusion.com/ej2/32.1.19/ej2-buttons/styles/tailwind3.css" rel="stylesheet" />
    <link href="https://cdn.syncfusion.com/ej2/32.1.19/ej2-splitbuttons/styles/tailwind3.css" rel="stylesheet" />
    <script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/systemjs/0.19.38/system.js"></script>
    <script src="systemjs.config.js"></script>
<script src="https://cdn.syncfusion.com/ej2/syncfusion-helper.js" type ="text/javascript"></script>
</head>

<body>
    <div id='loader'>Loading....</div>
    <div id='container'>
        <div id='editor'></div>
    </div>
    
</body>

</html>

You can refer to our TypeScript Rich Text Editor feature tour page for its groundbreaking feature representations. You can also explore our TypeScript Rich Text Editor example that shows how to render the Rich Text Editor tools.

See also