react-quill

What is react-quill?

react-quill is a React component for Quill, a powerful rich text editor. It provides a customizable and extensible interface for creating and editing content with a variety of formatting options.

What are react-quill's main functionalities?

Basic Usage

This code demonstrates the basic usage of react-quill. It imports the necessary modules, sets up a state to hold the editor's content, and renders the ReactQuill component.

import React, { useState } from 'react';
import ReactQuill from 'react-quill';
import 'react-quill/dist/quill.snow.css';

function MyEditor() {
  const [value, setValue] = useState('');
  return (
    <ReactQuill value={value} onChange={setValue} />
  );
}

export default MyEditor;

Custom Toolbar

This code demonstrates how to create a custom toolbar for the react-quill editor. It defines a CustomToolbar component and uses it in the MyEditor component, specifying the custom toolbar in the modules prop.

import React, { useState } from 'react';
import ReactQuill, { Quill } from 'react-quill';
import 'react-quill/dist/quill.snow.css';

const CustomToolbar = () => (
  <div id="toolbar">
    <button className="ql-bold">Bold</button>
    <button className="ql-italic">Italic</button>
    <select className="ql-color">
      <option value="red"></option>
      <option value="green"></option>
      <option value="blue"></option>
    </select>
  </div>
);

function MyEditor() {
  const [value, setValue] = useState('');
  return (
    <div>
      <CustomToolbar />
      <ReactQuill value={value} onChange={setValue} modules={{ toolbar: '#toolbar' }} />
    </div>
  );
}

export default MyEditor;

Formats and Modules

This code demonstrates how to specify custom formats and modules for the react-quill editor. It defines the formats and modules arrays and passes them as props to the ReactQuill component.

import React, { useState } from 'react';
import ReactQuill from 'react-quill';
import 'react-quill/dist/quill.snow.css';

const formats = [
  'header', 'bold', 'italic', 'underline', 'strike', 'blockquote',
  'list', 'bullet', 'indent',
  'link', 'image'
];

const modules = {
  toolbar: [
    [{ 'header': '1' }, { 'header': '2' }, { 'font': [] }],
    [{ 'list': 'ordered'}, { 'list': 'bullet' }],
    ['bold', 'italic', 'underline', 'strike', 'blockquote'],
    ['link', 'image'],
    [{ 'align': [] }]
  ]
};

function MyEditor() {
  const [value, setValue] = useState('');
  return (
    <ReactQuill value={value} onChange={setValue} modules={modules} formats={formats} />
  );
}

export default MyEditor;

Other packages similar to react-quill

draft-js

draft-js is a framework for building rich text editors in React, developed by Facebook. It provides a more programmatic approach to managing editor state and content, allowing for extensive customization and control over the editor's behavior. Compared to react-quill, draft-js requires more setup and configuration but offers greater flexibility.

slate

slate is another highly customizable framework for building rich text editors in React. It provides a more modern and flexible approach to handling editor state and content, with a focus on immutability and functional programming. Slate is more complex to set up compared to react-quill but offers extensive customization options and control over the editor's behavior.

ckeditor4-react

ckeditor4-react is a React integration for CKEditor 4, a popular WYSIWYG editor. It offers a wide range of features and plugins for content editing, similar to react-quill. CKEditor 4 provides a more traditional WYSIWYG editing experience and is highly configurable, making it a good alternative for users looking for a feature-rich editor.

README

ReactQuill

A Quill component for React.

See a live demo or Codepen.

• Quick Start
  • With webpack or create-react-app
  • With the browser bundle
• Usage
  • Controlled mode caveats
  • Using Deltas
  • Themes
  • Custom Toolbar
    • Default Toolbar Elements
    • HTML Toolbar
  • Custom Formats
  • Custom editing area
• Upgrading to ReactQuill v2
  • Deprecated props
  • ReactQuill Mixin
  • Toolbar component
• API reference
  • Exports
  • Props
  • Methods
  • The unprivileged editor
• Building and testing
• Browser support
• Changelog
• Contributors
• License

---

This is the documentation for ReactQuill v2 — Previous releases: v1

---

💯 ReactQuill v2 beta period

ReactQuill 2 is here, baby! And it brings a full port to TypeScript and React 16+, a refactored build system, and a general tightening of the internal logic.

We worked hard to avoid introducing any behavioral changes. For the vast majority of the cases, no migration is necessary at all. However, support for long-deprecated props, the ReactQuill Mixin, and the Toolbar component have been removed. Be sure to read the migration guide.

Help us test the beta, and finalize this release! To try it out, simply update the dependency:

npm install react-quill@beta

We expect this release to be a drop-in upgrade – if that isn't the case, please file an issue with the v2 label.

---

Quick Start

With webpack or create-react-app

Make sure you have react and react-dom, and some way to load styles, like style-loader. See the documentation on themes for more information.

npm install react-quill --save

import React from 'react';
import ReactQuill from 'react-quill';
import 'react-quill/dist/quill.snow.css';

function MyComponent() {
  const [value, setValue] = useState('');

  return (
    <ReactQuill theme="snow" value={value} onChange={setValue}/>
  );
}

With the browser bundle

<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://unpkg.com/react-quill@1.3.3/dist/quill.snow.css">

<script src="https://unpkg.com/react@16/umd/react.development.js" crossorigin></script>
<script src="https://unpkg.com/react-dom@16/umd/react-dom.development.js" crossorigin></script>
<script src="https://unpkg.com/react-quill@1.3.3/dist/react-quill.js"></script>
<script src="https://unpkg.com/babel-standalone@6/babel.min.js"></script>
<script type="text/babel" src="/my-scripts.js"></script>

Usage

Controlled mode caveats

In controlled mode, components are supposed to prevent local stateful changes, and instead only have them happen through onChange and value.

Because Quill handles its own changes, and does not allow preventing edits, ReactQuill has to settle for a hybrid between controlled and uncontrolled mode. It can't prevent the change, but will still override the content whenever value differs from current state.

If you frequently need to manipulate the DOM or use the Quill APIs imperatively, you might consider switching to fully uncontrolled mode. ReactQuill will initialize the editor using defaultValue, but won't try to reset it after that. The onChange callback will still work as expected.

Read more about uncontrolled components in the React docs.

Using Deltas

You can pass a Quill Delta, instead of an HTML string, as the value and defaultValue properties. Deltas have a number of advantages over HTML strings, so you might want use them instead. Be aware, however, that comparing Deltas for changes is more expensive than comparing HTML strings, so it might be worth to profile your usage patterns.

Note that switching value from an HTML string to a Delta, or vice-versa, will trigger a change, regardless of whether they represent the same document, so you might want to stick to a format and keep using it consistently throughout.

⚠️ Do not use the delta object you receive from the onChange event as value. This object does not contain the full document, but only the last modifications, and doing so will most likely trigger an infinite loop where the same changes are applied over and over again. Use editor.getContents() during the event to obtain a Delta of the full document instead. ReactQuill will prevent you from making such a mistake, however if you are absolutely sure that this is what you want, you can pass the object through new Delta() again to un-taint it.

Themes

The Quill editor supports themes. It includes a full-fledged theme, called snow, that is Quill's standard appearance, and a bubble theme that is similar to the inline editor on Medium. At the very least, the core theme must be included for modules like toolbars or tooltips to work.

To activate a theme, pass the name of the theme to the theme prop. Pass a falsy value (eg. null) to use the core theme.

<ReactQuill theme="snow" .../>

Then, import the stylesheet for the themes you want to use.

This may vary depending how application is structured, directories or otherwise. For example, if you use a CSS pre-processor like SASS, you may want to import that stylesheet inside your own. These stylesheets can be found in the Quill distribution, but for convenience they are also linked in ReactQuill's dist folder.

Here's an example using style-loader for Webpack, or create-react-app, that will automatically inject the styles on the page:

import 'react-quill/dist/quill.snow.css';

The styles are also available via CDN:

<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://unpkg.com/react-quill@1.3.3/dist/quill.snow.css">

Custom Toolbar

Default Toolbar Elements

The Quill Toolbar Module API provides an easy way to configure the default toolbar icons using an array of format names.

Example Code

class MyComponent extends Component {
  constructor(props) {
    super(props);
    this.state = {
      text: "",
    }
  }

  modules = {
    toolbar: [
      [{ 'header': [1, 2, false] }],
      ['bold', 'italic', 'underline','strike', 'blockquote'],
      [{'list': 'ordered'}, {'list': 'bullet'}, {'indent': '-1'}, {'indent': '+1'}],
      ['link', 'image'],
      ['clean']
    ],
  },

  formats = [
    'header',
    'bold', 'italic', 'underline', 'strike', 'blockquote',
    'list', 'bullet', 'indent',
    'link', 'image'
  ],

  render() {
    return (
      <div className="text-editor">
        <ReactQuill theme="snow"
                    modules={this.modules}
                    formats={this.formats}>
        </ReactQuill>
      </div>
    );
  }
}

export default MyComponent;

HTML Toolbar

You can also supply your own HTML/JSX toolbar with custom elements that are not part of the Quill theme.

See this example live on Codepen: Custom Toolbar Example

Example Code

/*
 * Custom "star" icon for the toolbar using an Octicon
 * https://octicons.github.io
 */
const CustomButton = () => <span className="octicon octicon-star" />

/*
 * Event handler to be attached using Quill toolbar module
 * http://quilljs.com/docs/modules/toolbar/
 */
function insertStar () {
  const cursorPosition = this.quill.getSelection().index
  this.quill.insertText(cursorPosition, "★")
  this.quill.setSelection(cursorPosition + 1)
}

/*
 * Custom toolbar component including insertStar button and dropdowns
 */
const CustomToolbar = () => (
  <div id="toolbar">
    <select className="ql-header" defaultValue={""} onChange={e => e.persist()}>
      <option value="1"></option>
      <option value="2"></option>
      <option selected></option>
    </select>
    <button className="ql-bold"></button>
    <button className="ql-italic"></button>
    <select className="ql-color">
      <option value="red"></option>
      <option value="green"></option>
      <option value="blue"></option>
      <option value="orange"></option>
      <option value="violet"></option>
      <option value="#d0d1d2"></option>
      <option selected></option>
    </select>
    <button className="ql-insertStar">
      <CustomButton />
    </button>
  </div>
)

/*
 * Editor component with custom toolbar and content containers
 */
class Editor extends React.Component {
  constructor (props) {
    super(props)
    this.state = { editorHtml: '' }
    this.handleChange = this.handleChange.bind(this)
  }

  handleChange (html) {
  	this.setState({ editorHtml: html });
  }

  render() {
    return (
      <div className="text-editor">
        <CustomToolbar />
        <ReactQuill
          onChange={this.handleChange}
          placeholder={this.props.placeholder}
          modules={Editor.modules}
        />
      </div>
    )
  }
}

/*
 * Quill modules to attach to editor
 * See http://quilljs.com/docs/modules/ for complete options
 */
Editor.modules = {
  toolbar: {
    container: "#toolbar",
    handlers: {
      "insertStar": insertStar,
    }
  }
}

/*
 * Quill editor formats
 * See http://quilljs.com/docs/formats/
 */
Editor.formats = [
  'header', 'font', 'size',
  'bold', 'italic', 'underline', 'strike', 'blockquote',
  'list', 'bullet', 'indent',
  'link', 'image', 'color',
]

/*
 * PropType validation
 */
Editor.propTypes = {
  placeholder: React.PropTypes.string,
}

/*
 * Render component on page
 */
ReactDOM.render(
  <Editor placeholder={'Write something or insert a star ★'}/>,
  document.querySelector('.app')
)

Custom Formats

The component has two types of formats:

1. The default Quill formats that are enabled/disabled using the formats prop. All formats are enabled by default.
2. Custom formats created using Parchment and registered with your component's Quill instance

Example Code

import ReactQuill, {Quill} from 'react-quill'; // ES6
const ReactQuill = require('react-quill'); // CommonJS

/*
 * Example Parchment format from
 * https://quilljs.com/guides/cloning-medium-with-parchment/
 * See the video example in the guide for a complex format
 */
let Inline = Quill.import('blots/inline');
class BoldBlot extends Inline { }
BoldBlot.blotName = 'bold';
BoldBlot.tagName = 'strong';
Quill.register('formats/bold', BoldBlot);

const formats = ["bold"] // add custom format name + any built-in formats you need

/*
 * Editor component with default and custom formats
 */
class MyComponent extends React.Component {
  constructor(props) {
    this.formats = formats
    this.state = { text: '' }
  }

  handleChange(value) {
    this.setState({text: value})
  }

  render() {
    return (
      <ReactQuill
        value={this.state.text}
        onChange={this.handleChange}
        formats={this.formats}
      />
    )
  }
}

Custom editing area

If you instantiate ReactQuill without children, it will create a <div> for you, to be used as the editing area for Quill. If you prefer, you can specify your own element for ReactQuill to use. Note that <textarea>s are not supported by Quill at this time.

Note: Custom editing areas lose focus when using React 16 as a peer dep at this time (bug).

class MyComponent extends React.Component {

  render() {
    return (
      <ReactQuill>
        <div className="my-editing-area"/>
      </ReactQuill>
    );
  }

});

Upgrading to ReactQuill v2

Upgrading to ReactQuill v2 should be as simple as updating your dependency. However, it also removes support for long-deprecated props, the ReactQuill Mixin, and the Toolbar component.

Deprecated props

Support for the toolbar, styles, pollInterval Quill options has long disabled. Starting from this release, ReactQuill will not warn you anymore if you try using them.

ReactQuill Mixin

The ReactQuill Mixin allowed injecting the core functionality that made ReactQuill tick into your own components, and create deeply customized versions.

The Mixin has been considered an anti-pattern for a long time now, so we have decided to finalize its deprecation.

There is no upgrade path. If you have a use case that relied on the Mixin, you're encouraged to open an issue, and we will try to provide you with a new feature to make it possible, or dedicated support to migrate out of it.

Toolbar component

Quill has long provided built-in support for custom toolbars, which replaced ReactQuill's (quite inflexible) Toolbar component.

Use the Toolbar Module or the HTML Toolbar feature instead.

API reference

Exports

// ES6
import ReactQuill, {Quill} from 'react-quill';

// CommonJS
const ReactQuill = require('react-quill');
const {Quill} = ReactQuill;

Quill : The Quill namespace on which you can call register.

Props

id : ID to be applied to the DOM element.

className : Classes to be applied to the DOM element.

value : Value for the editor as a controlled component. Can be a string containing HTML, a Quill Delta instance, or a plain object representing a Delta. Note that due to limitations in Quill, this is actually a semi-controlled mode, meaning that the edit is not prevented, but changing value will still replace the contents. Also note that passing a Quill Delta here, and then an HTML string, or vice-versa, will always trigger a change, regardless of whether they represent the same document. ⚠️ Do not pass the delta object from the onChange event as value, as it will cause a loop. See Using Deltas for details.

defaultValue : Initial value for the editor as an uncontrolled component. Can be a string containing HTML, a Quill Delta, or a plain object representing a Delta.

readOnly : If true, the editor won't allow changing its contents. Wraps the Quill disable API.

placeholder : The default value for the empty editor. Note: The Quill API does not support changing this value dynamically. Use refs and data-attributes instead (see #340).

modules : An object specifying which modules are enabled, and their configuration. The editor toolbar is a commonly customized module. See the modules section over the Quill documentation for more information on what modules are available.

formats : An array of formats to be enabled during editing. All implemented formats are enabled by default. See Formats for a list. Custom formats should not be included in the array as of version 1.0.0. Instead they should be created through Parchment and registered with the module's Quill export.

style : An object with custom CSS rules to apply on the editor's container. Rules should be in React's "camelCased" naming style.

theme : The name of the theme to apply to the editor. Defaults to snow, Quill's standard theme. Pass null to use the minimal core theme. See the docs on themes for more information on including the required stylesheets.

tabIndex : The order in which the editor becomes focused, among other controls in the page, during keyboard navigation.

bounds : Selector or DOM element used by Quill to constrain position of popups. Defaults to document.body.

children : A single React element that will be used as the editing area for Quill in place of the default, which is a <div>. Note that you cannot use a <textarea>, as it is not a supported target. Also note that updating children is costly, as it will cause the Quill editor to be recreated. Set the value prop if you want to control the html contents of the editor.

onChange(content, delta, source, editor) : Called back with the new contents of the editor after change. It will be passed the HTML contents of the editor, a delta object expressing the change, the source of the change, and finally a read-only proxy to editor accessors such as getHTML(). ⚠️ Do not use this delta object as value, as it will cause a loop. Use editor.getContents() instead. See Using Deltas for details.

onChangeSelection(range, source, editor) : Called back with the new selected range, or null when unfocused. It will be passed the selection range, the source of the change, and finally a read-only proxy to editor accessors such as getBounds().

onFocus(range, source, editor) : Called when the editor becomes focused. It will receive the new selection range.

onBlur(previousRange, source, editor) : Called when the editor loses focus. It will receive the selection range it had right before losing focus.

onKeyPress(event) : Called after a key has been pressed and released. : Note that, like its native counterpart, this won't be called for special keys such as shift or enter. If you need those, hook onto onKeyDown or onKeyUp.

onKeyDown(event) : Called after a key has been pressed, but before it is released. : Note that, due to how Quill works, it's possible that you won't receive events for keys such as enter, backspace or delete. If that's the case, try hooking onto onKeyUp instead.

onKeyUp(event) : Called after a key has been released.

preserveWhitespace : If true, a pre tag is used for the editor area instead of the default div tag. This prevents Quill from collapsing continuous whitespaces on paste. Related issue.

Methods

If you have a ref to a ReactQuill node, you will be able to invoke the following methods:

focus() : Focuses the editor.

blur() : Removes focus from the editor.

getEditor() : Returns the Quill instance that backs the editor. While you can freely use this to access methods such as getText(), please avoid from imperatively manipulating the instance, to avoid getting ReactQuill and Quill out-of-sync. A much-safer unprivileged editor is available as replacement.

Example

View this example on Codepen

class Editor extends React.Component {
  constructor(props) {
    super(props)
    this.quillRef = null;      // Quill instance
    this.reactQuillRef = null; // ReactQuill component
  }

  componentDidMount() {
    this.attachQuillRefs()
  }

  componentDidUpdate() {
    this.attachQuillRefs()
  }

  attachQuillRefs = () => {
    if (typeof this.reactQuillRef.getEditor !== 'function') return;
    this.quillRef = this.reactQuillRef.getEditor();
  }

  insertText = () => {
    var range = this.quillRef.getSelection();
    let position = range ? range.index : 0;
    this.quillRef.insertText(position, 'Hello, World! ')
  }

  render() {
    return (
      <div>
        <ReactQuill
          ref={(el) => { this.reactQuillRef = el }}
          theme={'snow'} />
        <button onClick={this.insertText}>Insert Text</button>
      </div>
    )
  }
}

makeUnprivilegedEditor : Creates an unprivileged editor. Pass this method a reference to the Quill instance from getEditor. Normally you do not need to use this method since the editor exposed to event handlers is already unprivileged.

Example

const editor = this.reactQuillRef.getEditor();
const unprivilegedEditor = this.reactQuillRef.makeUnprivilegedEditor(editor);
// You may now use the unprivilegedEditor proxy methods
unprivilegedEditor.getText();

The unprivileged editor

During events, ReactQuill will make a restricted subset of the Quill API available as the editor argument. This prevents access to destructive methods, which might cause ReactQuill to get out-of-sync with the component. It provides the following methods, which are mostly proxies of existing Quill methods:

getLength() : Returns the length of the editor contents, in characters, not including any HTML tag.

getText() : Returns the string contents of the editor, not including any HTML tag.

getHTML() : Returns the full HTML contents of the editor.

getContents() : Returns a Quill Delta of the complete document.

getSelection() : Returns the current selection range, or null if the editor is unfocused.

getBounds() : Returns the pixel position, relative to the editor container, and dimensions, of a selection, at a given location.

Building and testing

You can build libs, types and bundles:

npm build  # or watch

You can also run the automated test suite:

npm test

More tasks are available as package scripts:

Script	Description
npm run build	Builds lib and browser bundle
npm run watch	Rebuilds on source code changes
npm run test	Runs unit tests and coverage
npm run clean	Cleans build artifacts
npm run demo	Serves a simple ReactQuill test application

Browser support

Please check the browser support table for the upstream Quill dependency. The ReactQuill distributable itself is ES5-compatible.

Changelog

Full changelog

Contributors

ReactQuill would not be where it is today without the contributions of many people, which we are incredibly grateful for:

• @zenoamaro (maintainer)
• @alexkrolick (maintainer)
• @clemmy
• @asiniy
• @webcarrot
• @druti
• @e-jigsaw
• @zhang-z
• @Sajam
• @0bird512
• @jacktrades
• @1000hz
• @kkerr1
• @csk157
• @Janekk
• @AndyTheGiant
• @chrismcv
• @wouterh
• @tdg5
• @jrmmnr
• @l3kn
• @rpellerin
• @sandbochs
• @wouterh
• @MattKunze

License

The MIT License (MIT)

Copyright (c) 2020, zenoamaro [e-mail]

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.