Rich Text Editor

The Rich Text Editor is a basic building block for inputting textual content into AEM. It forms the basis of various components, including:

• Text
• Text Image
• Table

The WYSIWYG editing dialog provides a wide range of functionality:

In addition to the dialog based Rich Text Editing mode, AEM also provides the in-place editing mode, which allows direct editing of the text as it is displayed in the layout of the page.

Click twice on a paragraph (a slow double-click) to enter the inplace editing mode (the component border will now be orange).

You will be able to directly edit the text on the page, instead of inside a dialog window. Just make your changes and they will be automatically saved.

Currently, the Inplace Editing mode is enabled for page elements generated by the Text and Title components.

The Rich Text Editor provides a range of featues, these depend on the configuration of the individual component. The features are available for both the touch-optimized and classic UI.

Here you can apply formatting to characters you have selected (highlighted); some options also have short-cut keys:

• Bold (Ctrl-B)
  
• Italic (Ctrl-I)
  
• Underline (Ctrl-U)
  
• Subscript
• Superscript

All operate as a toggle, so reselection will remove the format.

Your installation can include predefined styles and formats. These are available with the Style and Format drop down lists and can be applied to text that you have selected.

A style can be applied to a specific string (a style correlates to CSS):

Whereas a format is applied to the entire text paragraph (a format is HTML-based):

A specific format can only be changed (the default is Paragraph).

A style can be removed; place the cursor within the text to which the style has been applied and click on the remove icon:

The standard functions of Cut and Copy are available. Several flavors of Paste are provided to cater for differing formats.

• Cut (Ctrl-X)
• Copy (Ctrl-C)
• Paste
  This is the default paste mechanism (Ctrl-V) for the component; when installed out-of-the-box this is configured to be "Paste from Word".
  
• Paste as Text
  Strips all styles and formatting to paste only the plain text.
  
• Paste from Word
  This pastes the content as HTML (with some necessary reformatting).

AEM keeps a record of your last 50 actions in the current component, held in chronological order. These actions can be undone (and then redone) in strict order, if required.

Your text can be either left, center or right aligned.

The indentation of a paragraph can be increased, or decreased. The selected paragraph will be indented, any new text entered will retain the current level of indentation.

Both bulleted and numbered lists can be created within your text. Either select the list type and start typing or highlight the text to be converted. In both cases a line-feed will start a new list item.

Nested lists can be achieved by indenting one or more list items.

The style of a list can be changed by simply positioning the cursor within the list, then selecting the other style. A sublist can also have a different style to the containing list. This can be applied once the sublist has been created (by indentation).

A link to an URL (either within your website or an external location) is generated by highlighting the required text then clicking the Hyperlink icon:

A dialog will allow you to specify the target URL; also whether it should be opened in a new window.

You can:

• type in a URI directly
  
• use the site map to select a page within your website
• enter the URI, then append the target anchor; e.g. www.TargetUri.org#AnchorName
• enter an anchor only (to reference "the current page"); e.g. #anchor
• search for a page in the content finder, then drag and drop the page icon into the Hyperlink dialog
  

To break the link position the cursor anywhere within the link text and click the Unlink icon:

An anchor can be created anywhere within the text by either positioning the cursor, or selecting some text. Then click on the Anchor icon to open the dialog.

Enter the name of the anchor then click OK to save.

The anchor is shown when the component is being edited and can now be used within a target for links.

AEM provides both a Find and a Replace (find and replace) function.

Both have a Find next button to search the open component for the text specified. You can also specify whether you need the case (upper/lower) to be matched.

The search will always start from the current cursor position within the text. When the end of the component is reached a message will inform you that the next search operation will start from the top.

The Replace option allows you to Find, then Replace an individual instance with the specified text, or to Replace all instances in the current component.

Images can be dragged from the content finder to add them to the text.

The spelling checker will check all the text in the current component.  

Any incorrect spellings will be highlighted:

Tables are available both:

In both the Text and Table components table functionality is available via the context menu (usually the right-mouse-button) clicked within the table; for example:

The table specific functions are:

The basic properties of the table can be configured, before clicking OK to save:

• Width
  The total width of the table.
  
• Height
  The total height of the table.
  
• Border
  The size of the table border.
  
• Cell padding
  This defines the white space between the cell content and its borders.
  
• Cell spacing
  This defines the distance between the cells.

The properties of a specific cell, or series of cells, can be configured:

• Width
  
• Height
  
• Horizontal Align
  Left, Center or Right
  
• Vertical Align
  Top, Middle, Bottom or Baseline
  
• Cell type
  Data or Header
  
• Apply to:
• Single cell
  
• Entire row
  
• Entire column

Rows can be added either above or below the current row.

The current row can also be deleted.

Columns can be added either to the left or right of the current column.

The current column can also be deleted.

Selects the entire current row or column. Specific actions (e.g. merge) are then available.

• If you have selected a group of cells you can merge these into one.
• If you have have only one cell selected then you can merge it with the cell to either the right or below.

Select a single cell to split it:

• Splitting a cell horizontally will generate a new cell to the right of the current cell, within the current column.
• Splitting a cell vertically will generate a new cell underneath the current cell, but within the current row.

Creating a nested table will create a new, self-contained table within the current cell.

This will remove the table from within the Text component.

Special characters can be made available to your rich text editor; these might vary according to your installation.

Use mouseover to see a magnified version of the character, then click for it to be included at the current location in your text.

The source editing mode allows you to see and edit the underlying HTML of the component.

So the text:

Will looks as follows in source mode (often the source is much longer, so you will have to scroll):