Images

The @ckeditor/ckeditor5-image package contains multiple plugins that implement various image-related features:

• Image implements basic support for images.
• ImageToolbar adds the image feature’s contextual toolbar.
• ImageCaption adds support for captions.
• ImageStyle adds support for image styles.
• ImageTextAlternative adds support for adding text alternative.
• ImageUpload adds support for uploading dropped or pasted images (see: Image upload).
• ImageResize adds support for resizing images.

# Base image support

The Image feature adds support for plain images with just the alt attribute set. This translates to the following HTML:

<figure class="image">
    <img src="..." alt="...">
</figure>

You can see the demo of a WYSIWYG editor with the base image feature enabled below:

# Image contextual toolbar

The ImageToolbar plugin introduces a contextual toolbar for images. The toolbar appears when an image is selected and can be configured to contain any buttons you want. Usually, these will be image-related options such as the text alternative (which is introduced by the base image plugin) button and image styles buttons.

See a demo of a WYSIWYG editor with the contextual toolbar enabled:

The image toolbar is configured to contain the image text alternative button:

ClassicEditor
    .create( document.querySelector( '#editor' ), {
        image: {
            toolbar: [ 'imageTextAlternative' ]
        }
    } )

# Image captions

The ImageCaption plugin adds support for image captions:

<figure class="image">
    <img src="..." alt="...">
    <figcaption>Caption goes here...</figcaption>
</figure>

By default, if the image caption is empty, the <figcaption> element is not visible to the user. You can click the image to reveal the caption. See the demo below:

# Image styles

In simple integrations it is enough to let the user insert images, set their text alternative and the editor’s job is done. An example of such a simple solution are e.g. GitHub comments. The styling of the images (for example, their maximum width and margins) is controlled by GitHub through stylesheets.

In more advanced scenarios, the user may need to be able to decide whether the image should take the whole width (if it is the article’s main photo) or it should take, for example, 50% of the width and be pulled out of the content (so called “pulled images”). Various integration scenarios require different types of images to be used.

This is what the ImageStyle feature is designed for.

However, unlike in CKEditor 4, in CKEditor 5 the end user does not set the image border, alignment, margins, width, etc. separately. Instead, they can pick one of the styles defined by the developer who prepared the WYSIWYG editor integration. This gives the developer control over how the users style images and makes the user’s life easier by setting multiple properties at once.

A style is applied to the image in form of a class. By default, CKEditor 5 is configured to support two styles: “full width” (which does not apply any class — it is the default style) and “side image” (which applies the image-style-side class).

A normal (full width) image:

<figure class="image"><img src="..." alt="..."></figure>

A side image:

<figure class="image image-style-side"><img src="..." alt="..."></figure>

Below you can see a demo of the WYSIWYG editor with the image styles feature enabled. The default configuration is used. You can change the styles of images through the image’s contextual toolbar.

# Configuring image styles

The available image styles can be configured using the image.styles option.

The following WYSIWYG editor supports the default full image style plus left- and right-aligned images:

ClassicEditor
    .create( document.querySelector( '#editor' ), {
        image: {
            // You need to configure the image toolbar, too, so it uses the new style buttons.
            toolbar: [ 'imageTextAlternative', '|', 'imageStyle:alignLeft', 'imageStyle:full', 'imageStyle:alignRight' ],

            styles: [
                // This option is equal to a situation where no style is applied.
                'full',

                // This represents an image aligned to the left.
                'alignLeft',

                // This represents an image aligned to the right.
                'alignRight'
            ]
        }
    } )
    .then( ... )
    .catch( ... );

The code sample above uses predefined image styles: 'full', 'alignLeft' and 'alignRight'. The latter two apply, respectively, the .image-style-align-left and .image-style-align-right classes to the <figure> element.

See the result below:

# Defining custom styles

Besides using the five predefined styles:

• 'full',
• 'side',
• 'alignLeft',
• 'alignCenter',
• 'alignRight'

you can also define your own styles or modify the existing ones.

You can find advanced examples in the image.styles configuration option documentation.

# Image upload

See the Image upload guide.

# Responsive images

Support for responsive images in CKEditor 5 is brought by the Easy Image feature without any additional configuration. Learn more how to use the feature in your project in the Easy Image integration guide.

# Resizing images

The image styles feature is meant to give the user the choice between a set of styling options provided by the system (so by the developer or administrator who created it). There are also scenarios where the user should be able to freely set the width of an image. And that is where the image resize feature comes to play.

It is implemented by the ImageResize plugin and enables four “resize handles” displayed over the selected image. The user can freely resize the image by dragging them. The feature can be configured to use either percentage (default) or pixel values.

# Enabling image resizing

The image resize feature is not enabled by default in any of the editor builds. In order to enable it, you need to load the ImageResize plugin. Read more in the Installation section.

# Markup and styling

When you resize an image, the inline width style is used and the <figure> is assigned the image_resized class:

<figure class="image image_resized" style="width: 75%;">
    <img src="..." alt="...">
</figure>

The image_resized class is used to disable max-width assigned by the image styles if one is applied to this image. For instance, the “side image” style is defined like this:

.ck-content .image-style-side {
    max-width: 50%;
    float: right;
    margin-left: var(--ck-image-style-spacing);
}

And the max-width gets overridden by the following rule:

.ck-content .image.image_resized {
    max-width: 100%;
}

Another concern when styling resized images is that by default, CKEditor 5 uses display: table on <figure class="image"> to make it take the size of the <img> element inside it. Unfortunately, browsers do not yet support using max-width and width on the same element if it is styled with display: table. Therefore, display: block needs to be used when the image is resized:

.ck-content .image.image_resized {
    display: block;
    box-sizing: border-box;
}

.ck-content .image.image_resized img {
    width: 100%;
}

.ck-content .image.image_resized > figcaption {
    display: block;
}

# Using pixels instead of percentage width

Using percentage widths ensures that content stays responsive when displayed in different places than in the WYSIWYG editor. If the user made an image take 60% of the content’s width in the editor, if you ever change the width of the target page (where this content is displayed), the image will still take 60% of that space. The same is true if the page is responsive and adjusts to the viewport’s width.

If you configured the editor to use pixel values, the image could take, for example, too much space after you introduced a new layout for your website.

However, there are cases where pixel values may be preferred. You can thus configure the editor to use them by setting the config.image.resizeUnit option:

ClassicEditor
    .create( editorElement, {
        image: {
            resizeUnit: 'px'
        }
    } )
    .then( ... )
    .catch( ... );

# Future development

Resizing by dragging handles displayed over the image is the first option provided, but we consider implementing more with time. Some of the possible next steps include:

• Buttons such as “50%”, “75%” and “100%” in the image toolbar, allowing the user to choose only from predefined widths.
• A traditional “width” input. Or an option to set both width and height separately.
• An option to restore the original image size.
• Limiting image resize with min and max values.

We count on your feedback. React with 👍 under the respective tickets or report new ones if you have different ideas.

# Installation

To add image features to your rich-text editor, install the @ckeditor/ckeditor5-image package:

npm install --save @ckeditor/ckeditor5-image

And add the plugins that you need to your plugin list. You also need to set the image toolbar items.

import Image from '@ckeditor/ckeditor5-image/src/image';
import ImageToolbar from '@ckeditor/ckeditor5-image/src/imagetoolbar';
import ImageCaption from '@ckeditor/ckeditor5-image/src/imagecaption';
import ImageStyle from '@ckeditor/ckeditor5-image/src/imagestyle';
import ImageResize from '@ckeditor/ckeditor5-image/src/imageresize';

ClassicEditor
    .create( document.querySelector( '#editor' ), {
        plugins: [ Image, ImageToolbar, ImageCaption, ImageStyle, ImageResize ],
        image: {
            toolbar: [ 'imageTextAlternative', '|', 'imageStyle:full', 'imageStyle:side' ]
        }
    } )
    .then( ... )
    .catch( ... );

# Common API

The Image plugin registers:

• The 'imageTextAlternative' button.
• The 'imageTextAlternative' command
• The 'imageInsert' command which accepts a source (e.g. an URL) of an image to insert.

The ImageStyle plugin registers:

• A button for each defined style — e.g. 'imageStyle:full' and 'imageStyle:side'.

• The 'imageStyle' command which accepts a value based on the image.styles configuration option (e.g. 'full' and 'side'):

  editor.execute( 'imageStyle', { value: 'side' } );
  

The ImageUpload plugin registers:

• The 'imageUpload' button which opens the native file browser to let you upload a file directly from your disk.
• The 'imageUpload' command which accepts the file to upload.

The ImageResize plugin registers:

• The 'imageResize' command which accepts the target width.

# Contribute

The source code of the feature is available on GitHub in https://github.com/ckeditor/ckeditor5-image.