In this article, we will guide you through the process of enhancing your CKEditor with font and background color options. By the end of this tutorial, you will be able to customize your CKEditor to include these features, offering a richer text editing experience for your users.
Prerequisites
Before we begin, make sure you have downloaded CKEditor version 4.22.1 Standard. This version is necessary as it allows us to add plugins directly to the editor. Note that this setup won’t work with the CDN version of CKEditor; you need the standalone version.
Enhancing CKEditor with Font and Background Color Options
In this article, we will guide you through the process of enhancing your CKEditor with font and background color options. By the end of this tutorial, you will be able to customize your CKEditor to include these features, offering a richer text editing experience for your users.
Prerequisites
Before we begin, make sure you have downloaded CKEditor version 4.22.1 Standard. This version is necessary as it allows us to add plugins directly to the editor. Note that this setup won’t work with the CDN version of CKEditor; you need the standalone version.
Step 1: Download and Extract Plugins
We will be using two plugins to achieve the desired functionality:
Download the plugins from the official CKEditor plugin repository or the links provided by CKEditor documentation. Once downloaded, extract the plugin files.
Step 2: Add Plugins to CKEditor
After extracting the plugin files, place them into the ckeditor/plugins directory of your CKEditor installation. Your directory structure should look something like this:
ckeditor/
├── plugins/
│ ├── colorbutton/
│ └── panelbutton/
Step 3: Configure CKEditor
Now that the plugins are in place, you need to configure CKEditor to use these plugins. Below is a basic example of how to integrate the color button plugin into CKEditor. This example assumes you have a text area with the id editor.
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
<title>CKEditor with Font and Background Color Options</title>
<script src="path/to/ckeditor/ckeditor.js"></script>
</head>
<body>
<textarea name="editor" id="editor"></textarea>
<script>
CKEDITOR.replace('editor', {
height: 210, // Adjust the height as needed
});
CKEDITOR.config.extraPlugins = 'colorbutton';
</script>
</body>
</html>
Make sure to replace path/to/ckeditor/ckeditor.js with the actual path to the ckeditor.js file in your installation.
Step 4: Customize Toolbar
To make the color options available in the toolbar, you need to configure the toolbar settings. Add the following configuration to your CKEditor setup:
<script>
CKEDITOR.replace('editor', {
height: 210, // Adjust the height as needed
extraPlugins: 'colorbutton',
toolbar: [
{ name: 'basicstyles', items: ['Bold', 'Italic', 'Underline', 'Strike', '-', 'RemoveFormat'] },
{ name: 'colors', items: ['TextColor', 'BGColor'] },
// Add other toolbar groups and items as needed
]
});
</script>
Final Touches
You can further customize CKEditor to suit your needs, including adjusting the toolbar layout, height, and other configurations. The key is to ensure that the extraPlugins property includes the colorbutton plugin and that your toolbar configuration includes the TextColor and BGColor buttons.
By following these steps, you will have successfully integrated font and background color options into CKEditor, providing a more robust and versatile text editing tool for your website.
Conclusion
Enhancing CKEditor with additional plugins like the Panel Button and Color Button allows you to offer a richer and more customizable text editing experience. This guide walked you through the process of downloading, installing, and configuring these plugins. For further customization and advanced features, refer to the CKEditor documentation and explore more plugins and configurations.
