AEM 6.4 has reached the end of extended support and this documentation is no longer updated. For further details, see our technical support periods. Find the supported versions here.
RTE functionalities are made available via a series of plug-ins, each with features property. You can configure the features property to enable or disable, one or more RTE features. This article describes how to specifically configure the RTE plug-ins.
For details about the other RTE configurations, see Configure Rich Text Editor.
When working with CRXDE Lite, it is recommended to save the changes regularly using Save All option.
To activate a plug-in, follow these steps. Some steps are needed only when you configure a plug-in for the first time, as the corresponding nodes do not exist.
By default, format
, link
, list
, justify
, and control
plugins and all their features are enabled in RTE.
The respective rtePlugins
node is referred to as <rtePlugins-node>
to avoid duplication in this article.
Using CRXDE Lite, locate the text component for your project.
Create the parent node of <rtePlugins-node>
if it does not exist, before configuring any RTE plug-ins:
Depending on your component, the parent nodes are:
config: .../text/cq:editConfig/cq:inplaceEditing/config
.../text/cq:editConfig/cq:inplaceEditing/inplaceEditingTextConfig
text: .../text/dialog/items/tab1/items/text
Are of type: jcr:primaryType cq:Widget
Both have the following property:
name
String
./text
Depending on the interface you are configuring for, create a node <rtePlugins-node>
, if it does not exist:
rtePlugins
nt:unstructured
Below this, create a node for each plug-in that you want to activate:
nt:unstructured
After activating a plug-in, follow these guidelines to configure the features
property.
Enable all features |
Enable a few specific features | Disable all features |
|
---|---|---|---|
Name | features | features | features |
Type | String | String (multi-string; set Type to String and click Multi in CRXDE Lite) | String |
Value | * (an asterisk) |
set to one, or more, feature values | - |
The findreplace
plug-in does not need any configuration. It works out of the box.
When using the replace functionality, the replace string to be replaced should be entered at the same time as find string. However you can still click find to search for the string before replacing it. If the replace string is entered after clicking find, the search is reset to the beginning of the text.
The find and replace dialog becomes transparent when find is clicked and becomes opaque when replace is clicked. This allows the author to review the text that the author will replace. If users click replace all, the dialog closes and displays the number of replacements made.
When using RTE, authors can paste content in one of the following three modes:
Browser mode: Paste text using the browser’s default paste implementation. It is not a recommended method as it may introduce unwanted markup.
Plain text mode: Paste the clipboard content as plain text. It strips all elements of style and formatting from the copied content before inserting in Experience Manager component.
MS Word mode: Paste the text, including tables, with formatting when copying from MS Word. Copying and pasting text from another source such as a web page or MS Excel is not supported and retain only partial formatting.
You can provide some, all, or none of these three icons to your authors in the RTE toolbar:
Paste (Ctrl+V): Can be pre-configured to correspond to one of the above three Paste modes.
Paste as Text: Provides plain text mode functionality.
Paste from Word: Provides MS Word mode functionality.
To configure RTE to display the required icons, follow these steps.
/apps/<myProject>/components/text
.rtePlugins/edit
. See activate a plug-in if the node does not exist.features
property on the edit
node and add one or more of the features. Save all changes.You can pre-configure the behavior of the Paste (Ctrl+V) icon, using the following steps. This configuration also defines the behavior of keyboard shortcut Ctrl+V that Authors use to paste content.
The configuration allows for the following three types of use cases:
Paste text using the browser’s default paste implementation. It is not a recommended method as it may introduce unwanted markup. Configured using browser
below.
Paste the clipboard content as plain text. It strips all elements of style and formatting from the copied content before inserting in AEM component. Configured using plaintext
below.
Paste the text, including tables, with formatting when copying from MS Word. Copying and pasting text from another source such as a web page or MS Excel is not supported and retain only partial formatting. Configured using wordhtml
below.
In your component, navigate to <rtePlugins-node>/edit
node. Create the nodes if these do not exist. For more information, see activate a plug-in.
In the edit
node create a property using the following details:
defaultPasteMode
String
browser
, plaintext
, or wordhtml
.The paste-as-Microsoft-Word (paste-wordhtml
) mode can be further configured so that you can explicitly define which styles are allowed when pasting in AEM from another program, such as Microsoft Word.
For example, if only bold formats and lists should be allowed when pasting in AEM, you can filter out the other formats. This is called configurable paste filtering, which can be done for both:
For links, you can also define the protocols that are automatically accepted.
To configure which formats are allowed when pasting text into AEM from another program:
In your component, navigate to the node <rtePlugins-node>/edit
. Create the nodes if these do not exist. For more details, see activate a plug-in.
Create a node under the edit
node to hold the HTML paste rules:
htmlPasteRules
nt:unstructured
Create a node under htmlPasteRules
, to hold details of the basic formats allowed:
allowBasics
nt:unstructured
To control the individual formats accepted, create one, or more, of the following properties on the allowBasics
node:
bold
italic
underline
anchor
(for both links and named anchors)image
All properties are of Type Boolean
, so in the appropriate Value you can either select or remove the check mark to enable or disable the functionality.
If not explicitly defined the default value of true is used and the format accepted.
Other formats can also be defined using a range of other properties or nodes, also applied to the htmlPasteRules
node. Save all changes.
You can use the following properties for htmlPasteRules
.
Property | Type | Description |
---|---|---|
allowBlockTags |
String | Defines the list of block tags allowed. A few possible block tags include:
|
fallbackBlockTag |
String | Defines the block tag used for any blocks having a block tag not included in allowBlockTags . p suffices in most cases. |
table | nt:unstructured | Defines the behavior when pasting tables. This node must have the property allow (type Boolean) to define whether pasting tables is allowed. If allow is set to false , you must specify the property ignoreMode (type String) to define how pasted table content is handled. Valid values for ignoreMode are:
|
list | nt:unstructured | Defines the behavior when pasting lists. Must have the property allow (type Boolean) to define whether the pasting of lists is allowed. If allow is set to false , you must specify the property ignoreMode (type String) to define how to handle any list content pasted. Valid values for ignoreMode are:
|
An example of a valid htmlPasteRules
structure is below.
"htmlPasteRules": {
"allowBasics": {
"italic": true,
"link": true
},
"allowBlockTags": [
"p", "h1", "h2", "h3"
],
"list": {
"allow": false,
"ignoreMode": "paragraph"
},
"table": {
"allow": true,
"ignoreMode": "paragraph"
}
}
Authors can apply Styles to change the appearance of a portion of text. The styles are based on CSS classes that you pre-define in your CSS style sheet. Stylized content is enclosed in span
tags using the class
attribute to refer to the CSS class. For example, <span class=monospaced>Monospaced Text Here</span>
.
When the Styles plug-in is enabled for the first time, no default Styles are available. The pop-up list is empty. To provide the authors with Styles, do the following:
For later configurations, say to add more styles, follow only the instructions to reference a new style sheet and to specify the additional styles.
You can define Styles for tables or table cells. These configurations require separate procedures.
This is done by enabling the styles plug-in.
In your component, navigate to the node <rtePlugins-node>/styles
. Create the nodes if these do not exist. For more details, see activate a plug-in.
Create the features
property on the styles
node:
features
String
*
(asterisk)Save all changes.
Once the Styles plug-in is enabled, the Style drop-down list is displayed in the edit dialog. However, the list is empty as no Styles are configured.
Then, specify the location(s) of the style sheet(s) you want to reference:
Navigate to the root node of your text component, for example /apps/<myProject>/components/text
.
Add the property externalStyleSheets
to the parent node of <rtePlugins-node>
:
externalStyleSheets
String[]
(multi-string; click Multi in CRXDE)You can add references to additional style sheets at any later time.
Save all changes.
When using RTE in a dialog (Classic UI), you can specify stylesheets that are optimized for rich text editing. Due to technical restrictions the CSS context is lost in the editor, so you can emulate this context to improve the WYSIWYG experience. The Rich Text Editor uses a container DOM element with an ID of CQrte
that can be used to provide different styles for viewing and editing:
#CQ td {
// defines the style for viewing }
#CQrte td {
// defines the style for editing }
In the component definition, navigate to the node <rtePlugins-node>/styles
, as created in Enabling the style drop-down selector.
Under the node styles
, create a new node (also called styles
) to hold the list being made available:
styles
cq:WidgetCollection
Create a new node under the styles
node to represent an individual style:
nt:unstructured
Add the property cssName
to this node to reference the CSS class:
cssName
String
cssClass
instead of .cssClass
)Add the property text
to the same node; this defines the text shown in the selection box:
text
String
Save the changes.
Repeat the above steps for each required style.
Any text authored in RTE is placed within a block tag, the default being <p>
. By enabling the paraformat
plug-in, you specify additional block tags that can be assigned to paragraphs, using a drop-down selection list. Paragraph formats determine the paragraph type by assigning the correct block tag. The author can select and assign them using the Format selector. The example block tags include, amongst others, the standard paragraph <p> and headings <h1>, <h2>, and so on.
This plug-in is not suitable for content with complex structure, such as lists or tables.
If a block tag, for example an <hr> tag, can’t be assigned to a paragraph, it is not a valid use case for a paraformat plug-in.
When the Paragraph Formats plug-in is enabled for the first time, no default Paragraph Formats are available. The pop-up list is empty. To provide the authors with Paragraph Formats, do the following:
For later (re-)configurations, say to add more formats, follow only the relevant part of the instructions.
First enable the paraformat
plug-in:
In your component, navigate to the node <rtePlugins-node>/paraformat
. Create the nodes if these do not exist. For more details, see activate a plug-in.
Create the features
property on the paraformat
node:
features
String
*
(asterisk)If the plug-in is not configured further, the following default formats are enabled:
<p>
)<h1>
)<h2>
)<h3>
)When configuring the paragraph formats of the RTE, do not remove the paragraph tag <p> as a formatting option. If the <p> tag is removed, then the content author can not select the Paragraph formats option even if there are additional formats configured.
Paragraph formats may be made available for selection by:
In the component definition, navigate to the node <rtePlugins-node>/paraformat
, as created in Enabling the format drop-down selector.
Under the paraformat
node create a new node, to hold the list of formats:
formats
cq:WidgetCollection
Create a new node under the formats
node, this holds details for an individual format:
nt:unstructured
To this node, add the property to define the block tag used:
Name tag
Type String
Value The block tag for the format; for example: p, h1, h2, etc.
You do not need to enter the delimiting angle-brackets.
To the same node add another property, for descriptive text to appear in the drop-down list:
description
String
Save the changes.
Repeat the steps for each required format.
If you define custom formats, the default formats (<p>
, <h1>
, <h2>
, and <h3>
) are removed. Re-create <p>
format as it is the default format.
In a standard AEM installation, when the misctools
plug-in is enabled for special characters (specialchars
) a default selection is immediately available for use; for example, the copyright and trademark symbols.
You can configure the RTE to make your own selection of characters available; either by defining distinct characters, or an entire sequence.
Adding your own special characters overrides the default selection. If required, (re-)define these characters in your own selection.
In your component, navigate to the node <rtePlugins-node>/misctools
. Create the nodes if these do not exist. For more details, see activate a plug-in.
Create the features
property on the misctools
node:
Name features
Type String[]
Value specialchars
(or String / *
if applying all features for this plug-in)
Under misctools
create a node to hold the special character configurations:
specialCharsConfig
nt:unstructured
Under specialCharsConfig
create another node to hold the list of characters:
chars
nt:unstructured
Under chars
add a new node to hold an individual character definition:
nt:unstructured
To this node add the following property:
entity
String
&189;
for the fraction one half.Save the changes.
After the property is saved, the represented character is displayed in CRXDE. See the example of half below. Repeat the above steps to make more special characters available to the authors.
Use steps 1 to 3 from Defining a Single Character.
Under chars
add a new node to hold the definition of the character range:
nt:unstructured
Under this node (named according to your special character range) add the following two properties:
Save the changes.
For example, define a range from 9998 - 10000 provides you with the following characters.
In CRXDE, define a range of characters to be made available in RTE
Special characters available in RTE are displayed to authors in a pop-up window
Styles are typically applied on text, but a separate set of Styles can also be applied on a table or a few table cells. Such Styles are available to authors from the Style selector box in either the Cell properties or Table properties dialog. The styles are available when editing a table within a Text component (or derivative) and not in the standard Table component.
You can define styles for tables and cells for Classic UI only.
Copying and pasting tables in or from RTE component is browser-dependent. It is not supported out of the box for all browsers. You may get varied results depending on table structure and browser. For example, when you copy and paste a table in a RTE component in Mozilla Firefox in Classic UI and Touch UI, the layout of the table is not preserved.
Within your component navigate to the node <rtePlugins-node>/table
. Create the nodes if these do not exist. For more details, see activate a plug-in.
Create the features
property on the table
node:
features
String
*
(asterisk)If you do not want to enable all table features you can create the features
property as:
Type String[]
Value(s) one, or both, of the following, as required:
table
to allow the editing of table properties; including the styles.cellprops
to allow the editing of cell properties, including the styles.Define the location of CSS style sheets to refer those. See Specifying the location of your style sheet as this is the same as when defining styles for text. The location may be defined if you defined other styles.
Under the table
node create the following new nodes (as required):
To define styles for the entire table (available under Table properties):
table-styles
cq:WidgetCollection
To define styles for the individual cells (available under Cell properties):
cellStyles
cq:WidgetCollection
Create a new node (under the table-styles
or cellStyles
node as appropriate) to represent an individual style:
nt:unstructured
On this node create the properties:
To define the CSS style to be referenced
cssName
String
.
, for example, cssClass
instead of .cssClass
)To define a descriptive text to appear in the drop-down selector
text
String
Save all changes.
Repeat the above steps for each required style.
Sometimes, you may create data tables without visual text in a column header assuming that the header’s purpose is implied by the visual relationship of the column with other columns. In this case, it is necessary to provide hidden inner text within the cell in the header cell to allow screen readers and other assistive technologies to help the readers with various needs understand the purpose of the column.
To enhance accessibility in such scenarios, RTE supports hidden header cells. In addition, it provides configuration settings related to hidden headers in tables. These settings let you apply CSS styles on hidden headers in edit and preview modes. To help authors identify hidden headers in the edit mode, include the following parameters in your code:
hidden-headerEditingCSS
: Specifies the name of the CSS class that is applied on the hidden-header cell, when RTE is edited.hidden-headerEditingStyle
: Specifies a Style string that is applied on the hidden-header cell when RTE is edited.If you specify both the CSS and the Style string in code, the CSS class takes precedence over the style string and may overwrite any configuration changes the Style string makes.
To help authors apply CSS on hidden headers in the preview mode, you can include the following parameters in your code:
hidden-headerClassName
: Specifies the name of the CSS class that is applied on the hidden header cell in preview mode.hidden-headerStyle
: Specifies a Style string that is applied on the hidden-header cell in preview mode.If you specify both the CSS and the Style string in code, the CSS class takes precedence over the style string and may overwrite any configuration changes the Style string makes.
When the spellcheck plug-in is activated, the RTE uses dictionaries for each appropriate language. These are then selected according to the language of the website by taking either the language property of the subtree or extracting the language from the URL; for example. the /en/
branch is checked as English, the /de/
branch as German.
The message Spell checking failed
is seen if a check is attempted for a language that is not installed. The standard dictionaries are located at /libs/cq/spellchecker/dictionaries
, along with the appropriate readme files. Do not modify the files.
A standard AEM installation includes the dictionaries for American English (en_us
) and British English (en_gb
). To add more dictionaries, follow these steps.
Navigate to the page https://extensions.openoffice.org/.
Do one of the following to find a dictionary of your choice of language:
Download the archive with the spelling definitions. Extract the contents of the archive on your file system.
Only dictionaries in the MySpell
format for OpenOffice.org v2.0.1 or earlier, are supported. As the dictionaries are now archive files, it is recommended that you verify the archive after downloading.
Locate the .aff and .dic files. Keep filename in lowercase. For example, de_de.aff
and de_de.dic
.
Load the .aff and .dic files in the repository at /apps/cq/spellchecker/dictionaries
.
The RTE spell checker is available on-demand. It does not run automatically as you start typing text. To run the spell checker, click Spellchecker from the toolbar. RTE checks the spelling of words and highlights the misspelled words.
If you incorporate any change that the spell checker suggests, the state of the text changes and misspelled words are no longer highlighted. To run the spell checker, tap/click Spellchecker button again.
RTE allows authors to undo or redo a few last edits. By default, 50 edits are stored in the history. You can configure this value as required.
Within your component navigate to the node <rtePlugins-node>/undo
. Create these nodes if they do not exist. For more details, see activate a plug-in.
On the undo
node create the property:
Name maxUndoSteps
Type Long
Value the number of undo steps you want saved in the history.
Save the changes.
When the tab character is pressed within any text a predefined number of spaces is inserted; by default this is three non-breaking spaces and one space. To define the tab size:
In your component, navigate to the node <rtePlugins-node>/keys
. Create the nodes if these do not exist. For more details, see activate a plug-in.
On the keys
node create the property:
tab-size
String
Save the changes.
When indentation is enabled (default) you can define the size of indent:
This indent size is only applied to paragraphs (blocks) of text; it does not affect the indentation of actual lists.
Within your component navigate to the node <rtePlugins-node>/lists
. Create these nodes if they do not exist. For more details, see activate a plug-in.
On the lists
node create the identSize
parameter:
identSize
Long
You can define the height of the editable space shown within the component dialog:
On the ../items/text
node in the dialog definition for the component, create a new property:
height
Long
This does not change the height of the dialog window.
Save the changes.
This is only applicable when using the RTE in a dialog (not in-place editing in classic UI).
When adding links in AEM, you can define:
To configure how links are added in AEM from another program, define the HTML rules.
Using CRXDE Lite, locate the text component for your project.
Create a new node at the same level as <rtePlugins-node>
, that is, create the node under the parent node of <rtePlugins-node>
:
htmlRules
nt:unstructured
The ../items/text
node has the property:
xtype
String
richtext
The location of the ../items/text
node can vary, depending on the structure of your dialog; two examples include:
/apps/myProject>/components/text/dialog/items/text
/apps/<myProject>/components/text/dialog/items/panel/items/text
Under htmlRules
, create a new node.
links
nt:unstructured
Under the links
node define the properties as required:
CSS style for internal links:
cssInternal
String
cssClass
instead of .cssClass
)CSS style for external links
cssExternal
String
cssClass
instead of .cssClass
)Array of valid protocols. The supported protocols are http://
, https://
, file://
, and mailto:
.
protocols
String[]
defaultProtocol (property of type String): Protocol to be used if the user did not specify one explicitly.
defaultProtocol
String
Definition of how to handle the target attribute of a link. Create a new node:
targetConfig
nt:unstructured
On the node targetConfig
: define the required properties:
Specify the target mode:
Name mode
Type String
)
Value(s) :
auto
: means that an automatic target is chosen
(specified by the targetExternal
property for external links or targetInternal
for internal links).
manual
: not applicable in this context
blank
: not applicable in this context
The target for internal links:
targetInternal
String
auto
)The target for external links:
targetExternal
String
auto
).Save all changes.