How to Make Your Own Rich Text Editor: A 2025 Guide

Creating a rich text editor from scratch can be an exciting project that combines knowledge of HTML, JavaScript, and CSS to build a functional and interactive online text editor. If you’re looking to make your own rich text editor online, free of charge, this article will guide you step-by-step on how to do it. You’ll learn how to leverage contenteditable attributes, design basic formatting controls, and integrate JavaScript to enable rich text features in your HTML editor.

Let’s dive in and explore how to make your own rich text editor using JavaScript!

Table of Contents

1. What is a Rich Text Editor?
2. Requirements to Create a Rich Text Editor
3. Step 1: Basic HTML Structure
4. Step 2: Adding the contenteditable Element
5. Step 3: Implementing Formatting Controls with JavaScript
6. Step 4: Styling the Editor
7. Step 5: Testing Your Rich Text Editor
8. Hosting on GitHub
9. Conclusion

What is a Rich Text Editor?

A rich text editor (RTE) is a web application feature that allows users to create, edit, and format text with various stylistic options (like bold, italics, headings, and lists) similar to what you might find in a word processor. Examples include popular editors like TinyMCE and CKEditor, but creating your own editor can give you a customizable solution tailored to your specific needs.

Requirements to Create a Rich Text Editor

To create your own rich text editor, you will need:

• Basic knowledge of HTML and CSS
• Familiarity with JavaScript, especially the DOM API
• An understanding of how to host HTML files, such as using GitHub

Note: For this guide, all code snippets can be tested in any modern browser that supports the contenteditable attribute.

Step 1: Basic HTML Structure

Let’s start with a basic HTML setup. This will include a div container to hold our editor and a few buttons for formatting controls.

Explanation

• The toolbar div contains buttons for formatting actions. Each button calls a JavaScript function with a command to format the text.
• The editor div is where users will type, and it has the contenteditable="true" attribute, making it editable.

Step 2: Adding the contenteditable Element

The contenteditable attribute is the heart of our rich text editor. When applied to an HTML element (like a div), it makes that element editable, allowing users to directly modify the text inside.

Here’s what the contenteditable element in our editor does:

The browser’s built-in editing functions will allow the text inside to be modified, but we’ll need JavaScript to add custom formatting actions.

Step 3: Implementing Formatting Controls with JavaScript

We can add text formatting with JavaScript using the document.execCommand() method. Each button in our toolbar will call formatText, passing in the appropriate command. Here's how to set it up:

JavaScript: script.js

Explanation

• document.execCommand() takes in a command (like bold, italic, underline, etc.) and applies it to the selected text within the contenteditable area.
• This approach allows for simple formatting without complex code.

Additional Features

Here’s how you can extend formatText to add more functionality:

You can now pass a value if needed (e.g., a color for foreColor).

Step 4: Styling the Editor

To make the editor visually appealing and functional, let’s add some basic CSS.

CSS: styles.css

Explanation

• #toolbar styles the toolbar and gives buttons a consistent look.
• #editor styles the contenteditable area, adding padding, width, height, and background color.

Step 5: Testing Your Rich Text Editor

Once you’ve built the basic structure and functionality, open the HTML file in a web browser. Try out each button to see if it performs the correct formatting. Type some text in the editor and apply various styles to ensure everything works as expected.

Troubleshooting

• Nothing happens when you click a button: Check that the onclick attributes on buttons match the function name in your JavaScript.
• The editor is not editable: Make sure the contenteditable attribute is set to true on the div.

Hosting on GitHub

Now that your rich text editor is functional, you can easily share it by hosting it on GitHub Pages.

Steps to Publish Your Editor on GitHub

1. Create a GitHub Repository: Go to GitHub, create a new repository, and add your HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files.
2. Commit and Push Your Files: Push your files to the repository.
3. Enable GitHub Pages:

• Go to the repository settings.
• Scroll down to the “GitHub Pages” section.
• Select the branch and folder where your index.html is located (usually main and /root).

1. Access Your Rich Text Editor Online: GitHub will provide you with a link to access your editor online for free.

Tip: You can also add a README file to describe your project and how to use it.

Conclusion

Congratulations! You have successfully built a simple, customizable rich text editor using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. While this tutorial covered a basic implementation, you can extend it by adding advanced features such as font selection, text alignment, and color customization. Creating your own rich text editor provides a lot of flexibility for projects that need a lightweight, custom text editor.

This guide should help you make your own rich text editor free of charge, host it on GitHub, and enable it with essential formatting features. Happy coding!

Originally published at https://www.azeembk.com.