CKEditor 5
features overview

Use shortcodes known from Markdown to quickly apply formatting to created content. Apply *bold* `code` #headers * lists .1 ordered lists [x] todos and more without having to use the toolbar at all.

The autolink feature allows links in plain text to turn into hyperlinks within the URL or email being linked.

Also known as “Autocorrect”, this feature lets you define your rules within a document by turning predefined text into special characters or symbols. Writing ™ or ½ becomes as easy as writing (tm) and 1/2.

This feature allows you to save data within documents periodically and automatically as the data is sent to the server when content is altered within a document.

They include inline code formatting as well as essential changes to text and alterations like bold, italic, strikethrough, underline, subscript, and superscript.

Block quotes are quotes created within a block as one group of text and can be used to attract attention to the quoted text, making it stand out from the rest of the text.

This feature allows the editor to intercept copy/paste/drag/drop events and process the data that is coming into or out of the editor.

Mark the code inline to make it easily distinguishable from the rest of the content.

To type inside a code element, move the caret to its (start or end) boundary. As long as the code remains highlighted, typing and formatting will be done within its boundaries.

Code blocks allow you to enter pre-formatted code into the editor as a block and assign a programming language to it. They are a great way to differentiate code from standard text and draw attention to it.

The experimental content minimap feature helps users navigate around the text within the editor. It also provides a visual overview when the document is longer than a page and when scrolling is required.

Allows you to grab multimedia, block objects, or text content, including images or tables, and drop it inside the editor. HTML and plain text can also be dragged and dropped from outside the editor into CKEditor 5.

Lets you search for words or phrases that were placed or written within the editor and go to that section. It also allows for replacing a chosen word or phrase with a new one and matches whole and partial words and phrases with respect to the letter case.

Users can change font styles of the text according to their liking. This includes different font colors, font family, or font size settings applied either to selected text or globally.

Structure your content with proper headings using different h tags (<h1>, <h2>, <h3> and so on). It will make it more attractive and easy to read as the tags work in ascending order where the ones closest to 1 are bolder and more pronounced.

This feature allows you to insert a horizontal line into the editor and text field, thus separating the text. It is also known as the horizontal rule and provides a visual way to separate the content.

Allows embedding an HTML snippet of code in the editor. The feature is targeted at more advanced users who want to directly interact with HTML fragments and can allow HTML code to bypass CKEditor’s filtering mechanics.

The General HTML Support feature allows developers to easily configure which additional elements, attributes, styles and classes CKEditor should support.

The text alternative tag aids accessibility and SEO, provides additional image description and supports better navigation.

You can click the image to reveal the caption field and write one. By default, if the image caption is empty, the <figcaption> element is not visible to the user.

The image feature allows adding images of various kinds to the rich content inside the editor. A large set of subfeatures lets the users fully control this process.

TheLinkImage is a plugin that allows for images to be linked. Meanwhile, AutoImage plugin recognizes image links and automatically embeds the images.

The image resize plugin allows for resizing each image added to the editor using handles. It is also possible to resize images with predefined values as a dropdown in the image toolbar, which shows up after you click on an image.

Align your images to the left or right within a text area of the editor. Set width to full or small, add captions or alternative text.

CKEditor 5 offers multiple image upload solutions. You can choose from the official upload adapters (CKBox, CKFinder, Base64 or Simple adapter) or create a custom one.

Thanks to this feature parts of content such as paragraphs or headings can be indented within the editor.

CKEditor can be fully controlled via keyboard. Many intuitive shortcuts like Ctrl/⌘ + Z undo or Ctrl/⌘ + B bolding, are available within the editor to use at your convenience.

Hyperlinks can be easily inserted into the content via toolbar or by pasting (thanks to the autolink feature). CKEditor 5 offers a UI to create and edit them. The feature also supports inserting email links.

List items can be indented or nested by using indenting buttons or Tab or Shift + Tab keystrokes within the editor.

The list style feature introduces some more styles for the list item markers. When enabled, it adds 3 styles for bulleted lists and 6 styles for numbered lists to choose from.

Bulleted lists (or unordered lists) allow for a list of items or text to be displayed with a dot on the side, thus not having a particular order of things shown. The type and shape of list markers can be adjusted.

Numbered lists (otherwise known as ordered lists) show a sequence of items being displayed in a specific order that is defined by the user. The list numbering can be chosen from several different styles, as well as the list starting number can be set.

Lets the user reverse the order of a list, changing it from ascending to descending. This is useful in countdowns or lists that need to reproduce steps in a reversed order (e.g. in disassembling instructions).

A to-do list allows you to create a list of interactive checkboxes with labels. All of the features of regular lists are supported such as nesting a to-do list with bulleted or numbered lists.

The Markdown plugin allows switching the default HTML output to Markdown. This makes preparing documents formatted with Markdown real fast and easy. Coupled with the autoformatting feature, it can provide a proper Markdown editor.

Insert videos, tweets, Instagram posts or Google Maps into your rich-text content by using the toolbar or pasting a URL directly into the editor.

Autocomplete your text as you type. When a user types a pre-configured marker, such as @ or #, they receive automatic suggestions to autocomplete, names, groups, subjects and many more.

Inserts a page break into the rich-text editor so you can better structure your content for print.

This feature allows for pasting content from Google Docs onto CKEditor 5. Text will follow the style and be transformed correctly between the two editors.

This plugin handles content from Office apps and transforms it with original styles and elements into a valid structure within CKEditor 5.

The plugin detects the user's intention to paste plain text. For example, it detects the Ctrl/Cmd + Shift + V keystroke combinations.

The Placeholder feature allows users to insert predefined placeholders, like a date or a surname, into the document.

CKEditor 5 can display a configurable placeholder text when the content is empty. The placeholder helps users locate the editor in the application and prompts to input the content.

Create your own plugins thanks to the architecture designed with flexibility and extensibility in mind. Get inspired by the publicly documented API and examples.

Let users only view the content without the ability to change it. While not editable, this content will still be accessible for copying or for screen readers.

This feature is used to clear any text formatting that was applied in a section within the editor.

CKEditor 5 provides support for responsive images. This can be backed up either by a custom upload adapter or by CKBox, the file management and image optimization plugin for CKEditor 5.

A range of RESTful APIs is offered by CKEditor Cloud Services that can be used to create server-to-server integrations.

Restrict access from certain parts of the editor in it being editable by other users. This is perfect for templates where certain parts need to be altered or filled.

Allows for selecting the entire content using the Ctrl/Cmd+A keystroke or a toolbar button so you can clear or copy all the content in one move.

This feature provides the possibility to view and edit the source of a document.

Provides a possibility to insert special characters into the rich-text editor, including characters such as mathematical operators, currency symbols, punctuation or graphic symbols.

CKEditor 5 allows nesting tables inside other table’s cells for creating advanced charts or layouts based on tables. The nested table can be formatted just like a regular one.

Thanks to this feature you will be able to modify the look of tables, table cells, including such aspects as background color, size or borders.

Table captions inform readers about the content within the table they are viewing. Using captions is also beneficial from the accessibility point of view as screen readers can read them.

This feature gives the content creator the ability to control column width, and resize tables as well as individual columns.

Lets users select an arbitrary rectangular table fragment (such as a few cells from different rows) and apply formatting or links to all the selected cells at once.

Present your data with intuitive tables. Use the feature toolbar to configure both the table and its content.

You can use the insert table toolbar button to create tables and click anywhere inside the table to involve the table toolbar. When you do this, you can add or remove columns and rows as well as merge or split cells.

CKEditor 5 lets you merge and split cells of tables. Select cells you want to merge or split and click the corresponding button in the table toolbar.

The Alignment feature enables support for text alignment. You can use it to align your content to left, right, center or to justify it.

Provides the ability to mark the language of selected text fragments. It makes working with multilingual content convenient and is useful when your whole content is written in one language but includes some citations in another.

The Title feature enables support for adding the title field to your document, thus allowing for a clear division of content into the title and body sections.

The toolbar is the most basic user interface element of the editor that gives you convenient access to all its features. It contains various items like buttons or dropdowns that you can use to manage the content.

This plugin provides the balloon toolbar for the editor and it allows for creating single or multiple panel stacks. Each stack may have multiple views, with the one on the top being visible.

Provides an additional toolbar on the left-hand side of the content area represented by a button with a paragraph mark — ¶. It comes in handy when the main editor toolbar cannot be accessed.

You can use the multiline toolbar configuration to accommodate all editor features in an accessible and clean manner.

CKEditor 5 is compatible with most of the popular CSS frameworks, such as Bootstrap, Foundation, Materialize or Semantic-UI.

The UI of the editor can be localized. Currently, 41 of available languages are fully translated, including 38 professional translations. There are also numerous other languages covered by community translators.

The standard UI library of CKEditor 5 provides base classes and helpers that allow for building a modular UI that seamlessly integrates with other components of the ecosystem. It is extensive and users can create their own plugins with a custom UI.

Allows for undoing and redoing changes in the content.

The watchdog utility protects you from data loss in case the editor crashes. It saves your content just before the crash and creates a new instance of the editor with your content intact.

Allows for tracking the number of words and characters written in the editor. It’s essential for writing professionals as well as students and marketers.