Note: This documentation is for Moodle 2.7. For up-to-date documentation see Text editor.

Text editor

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Revision as of 06:28, 16 March 2013 by Helen Foster (talk | contribs) (Reverted edits by Keljoromo (talk) to last revision by Mary Cooch)

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

  • HTML editor group font style.png - Font, size and heading group
  • HTML editor group undo redo.png - Undo and Redo group
  • HTML editor group find replace.png - Find and Replace group
  • HTML editor group fullscreen 1.png|Full screen toggle

Row 2

  • HTML editor group text effects.png - Text effect group
  • HTML editor group line format.png - Line format group
  • HTML editor group formatting.png - Formatting group
  • HTML editor group color.png - Color group
  • HTML editor group paragraph.png - Paragraph group

Row 3

  • HTML editor group lists.png - Number and Bullets and indents
  • HTML editor group link.png - Link group
  • HTML editor group insert.png - Insert group
  • HTML editor group HTML spell.png - HTML source toggle & spellchecker

Special features

Color pickers

  • HTML editor group color.png

There are four 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.

TinyMCE editor settings

New feature
in Moodle 2.7!

The TinyMCE HTML editor has its own settings page Settings>Site administration>Plugins>Text editors>TinyMCE HTML editor>General settings with the following options:

Plugins

  • Buttons for equations, emoticons,images, media, automatic linking, and spell-checking may be enabled, disabled or uninstall here by clicking on their eye.
  • Additionally the equation, emoticon and spell check buttons have links to their Settings screens.
"The TinyMCE editor plugins screen"
The TinyMCE editor plugins screen
Insert equation

Accessed from Settings>Site administration>Plugins>Text editors>TinyMCE HTML editor>Edit equation, this allows you to enable or disable the TeX filter in the editor context and thereby display the Dragmath button. If you have a global custom TeX filter, then disable this setting.

Insert emoticon

Accessed from Settings>Site administration>Plugins>Text editors>TinyMCE HTML editor>Insert emoticon, this allows you to enable or disable the emoticon filter in the editor context and thereby display the emoticon button.

Spell checker

If you want to disable the TinyMCE spell checker and rely on browser spell checker functionality instead, you can do this by disabling the spellchecker plugin by clicking the eye in Settings > Site administration > Plugins > Text editors > TinyMCE HTML editor > General settings

You can select a different spell engine from Settings> Site administration > Plugins > Text editors > TinyMCE HTML editor>Check spelling and can choose languages for the spell checking feature


Choosing a different spell engine
add additional languages for spell checking
Spell checking in action in the editor


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.

Customising the editor toolbar

New feature
in Moodle 2.7!


An administrator can remove or add buttons to the TinyMCE editor toolbar by altering the Editor toolbar box in Settings>Site administration>Plugins>Text editors>TinyMCE HTML editor>General settings as demonstrated in the screencast Customise the text editor in 2.4

The Editor toolbar box

Here is the default list of TinyMCE buttons available for use

Available fonts list

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>General settings as demonstrated in the screencast How to add extra fonts.

Custom configuration

New feature
in Moodle 2.7!

A new setting from 2.4.1 in Settings>Site administration>Plugins>Text editors>TinyMCE HTML editor>General settings provides a box in which an administrator can apply custom formats. See MDL-37186 for more details with examples, and see also the TinyMCE configuration page

See also