Note: You are currently viewing documentation for Moodle 2.3. Up-to-date documentation for the latest stable version is available here: Text editor.

Text editor

From MoodleDocs

The text editor (sometimes referred to as the 'HTML editor' or even 'TinyMCE') has many icons to assist the user in entering content. Many of these icons and functions should be familiar to anyone who uses a word processor. Some examples of where you will see the text editor include: Editing Section headings, description of an activity, writing an answer to a quiz question or editing the content of many blocks.

The standard version of the text editor tool bar

List of groups

For those who are not familiar with the tool bar, here are the functions listed by group using the above example. Remember that the site administrator can edit or provide additonal toolbars.

Row 1

  • - Font, size and heading group
  • - Undo and Redo group
  • - Find and Replace group
  • |Full screen toggle

Row 2

  • - Text effect group
  • - Line format group
  • - Formatting group
  • - Color group
  • - Paragraph group

Row 3

  • - Number and Bullets and indents
  • - Link group
  • - Insert group
  • - HTML source toggle & spellchecker

Special features

Color pickers

There are 4 levels of selecting a font or background color,

  • A quick pick 5x8 matrix of colors
  • "More colors" that links to Picker, Pallet and Named tabs

Insert images and media

The Insert images and media group
  • 1 Insert Image - uses File picker
  • 2 Insert Emoticon (only visible if the site administrator has enabled the "show emoticons as images" filter in Settings>Site administration>Plugins>Filters>Manage filters)
  • 3 Insert Media - uses File picker
  • 4 Insert Equation - uses java script editor
  • 5 Insert Non breaking space
  • 6 Insert Custom character - Special keyboard characters
  • 7 Insert Table -

Insert table

To add borders to a table

Cell borders are crucial for helping readers to follow the rows across the screen. If they aren’t showing already you can add them as follows:

  1. In the Wiki page containing your table, click its Edit tab
  2. Carefully select all the cells of the table
  3. Then right click (Macs: Command+click or Ctrl+Click) over any part of your selection to get a context menu; from it select Cell > Table Cell Properties; the cell properties dialog box then loads.
  4. Click on its Advanced tab, set Border Color to black (for instance), then click Apply, and then click Update.
  5. Click Save; the Wiki page containing your table will then load displaying its borders.

Site administration settings

Manage editors

A site administrator can enable / disable text editors in Settings > Site administration > Plugins > Text editors > Manage editors. By default the TinyMCE HTML editor and plain text area are enabled.

Spell engine

If PSpellSpell is selected then aspell 0.50 or later must be installed on your server and the path to aspell set in Settings > Site administration > Server > System Paths.

HTML settings

A site administrator can edit the emoticons (or smileys) used in the text editor in Settings > Site administration > Appearance > HTML settings.

Available fonts list

New feature
in Moodle 2.3!
In addition to the default fonts, a site administrator can add extra fonts by typing their name and string in the box in Settings > Site administration > Plugins > Text editors > TinyMCE HTML editor as demonstrated in the screencast How to add extra fonts.

See also