RichTextEditor

A free, open-source rich text editor for React. It is lightweight, extensible, and published as an npm package for production use.

For interactive demos and quick navigation to examples and repository documentation, see the GitHub Pages documentation hub.

Table of contents

• Overview
• Features
• Live demos
• Installation
• Quick start
• Usage
• API reference
• Contributing
• License

Overview

RichTextEditor is a React component for formatting and editing HTML content. It suits blogs, content management systems, comment threads, documentation tools, and any application where users need structured text without leaving the page.

The editor is built on Tiptap and ProseMirror, with TypeScript types included in the package.

Features

• Text formatting: bold, italic, underline, strikethrough
• Headings: levels H1 through H6
• Lists: ordered and unordered
• Links: insert and edit hyperlinks
• Images: embed via URL or file upload
• Blockquotes: styled quote blocks
• Code: inline code and fenced code blocks with syntax highlighting
• History: undo and redo
• Clipboard: paste from external sources with formatting preserved where possible
• Theming: light and dark modes
• Accessibility: ARIA attributes and keyboard navigation
• TypeScript: full type definitions

Live demos

Demo	Description
Playground	Interactive sandbox: toolbar presets, themes, and live HTML output
React (Vite)	Blog-style integration in a React and Vite app
Next.js	Next.js (React 19-compatible baseline) integration example
Storybook	Component gallery with controls and accessibility checks

Installation

Install the package with your preferred client:

npm install rich-text-editor-ndevu

yarn add rich-text-editor-ndevu

pnpm add rich-text-editor-ndevu

Peer dependencies

React 18 or newer is required:

npm install react react-dom

yarn add react react-dom

pnpm add react react-dom

Quick start

import React, { useState } from 'react';
import { RichTextEditor } from 'rich-text-editor-ndevu';
import 'rich-text-editor-ndevu/styles.css';

export default function App() {
  const [content, setContent] = useState('');

  return (
    <div>
      <h1>My editor</h1>
      <RichTextEditor
        value={content}
        onChange={setContent}
        placeholder="Start typing..."
      />
      <pre>{content}</pre>
    </div>
  );
}

Import the stylesheet (rich-text-editor-ndevu/styles.css) so layout and toolbar render correctly. If your bundler treats CSS imports as side effects, styles may also load when you import the component alone.

Usage

Controlled component

import React, { useState } from 'react';
import { RichTextEditor } from 'rich-text-editor-ndevu';

function ControlledExample() {
  const [html, setHtml] = useState('<p>Hello, <strong>world</strong>!</p>');

  return (
    <RichTextEditor
      value={html}
      onChange={(newValue) => setHtml(newValue)}
    />
  );
}

Read-only mode

import { RichTextEditor } from 'rich-text-editor-ndevu';

function ReadOnlyExample() {
  return (
    <RichTextEditor
      value="<p>This content is <em>read-only</em>.</p>"
      readOnly
    />
  );
}

Custom toolbar

import { RichTextEditor } from 'rich-text-editor-ndevu';

function CustomToolbarExample() {
  return (
    <RichTextEditor
      value=""
      onChange={console.log}
      toolbar={['bold', 'italic', 'underline', '|', 'link', 'image']}
    />
  );
}

Dark mode

import { RichTextEditor } from 'rich-text-editor-ndevu';

function DarkModeExample() {
  return (
    <RichTextEditor
      value=""
      onChange={console.log}
      theme="dark"
    />
  );
}

API reference

Component props

Prop	Type	Default	Description
value	string	''	HTML string for the current content.
onChange	(value: string) => void	N/A	Called when content changes; receives the updated HTML.
placeholder	string	'Write something...'	Shown when the editor is empty.
readOnly	boolean	false	Renders the editor as read-only when true.
toolbar	ToolbarItem[]	All items	Toolbar button identifiers; use '|' as a visual separator.
theme	'light' | 'dark'	'light'	Color theme.
minHeight	string | number	'200px'	Minimum height of the editable region.
maxHeight	string | number	undefined	Maximum height before the region scrolls.
className	string	undefined	Extra class on the editor wrapper.
style	React.CSSProperties	undefined	Inline styles on the editor wrapper.
onFocus	() => void	undefined	Called when the editor receives focus.
onBlur	() => void	undefined	Called when the editor loses focus.
ariaLabel	string	'Rich text editor'	Accessible name for the editing surface.

Toolbar migration (non-breaking)

Existing toolbar arrays are still supported:

<RichTextEditor toolbar={['bold', 'italic', '|', 'link', 'image']} />

You can gradually migrate to rich toolbar objects for dynamic behavior:

import type { ToolbarInput } from 'rich-text-editor-ndevu';

const toolbar: ToolbarInput = [
  { id: 'bold' },
  { id: 'italic', label: 'Emphasis' },
  { type: 'separator' },
  {
    id: 'undo',
    isDisabled: ({ readOnly }) => readOnly,
    label: ({ readOnly }) => (readOnly ? 'Undo (read-only)' : 'Undo'),
  },
];

<RichTextEditor value="" onChange={setContent} toolbar={toolbar} />;

Rich entries support dynamic resolvers for:

• label
• icon
• shortcut
• isVisible
• isDisabled
• isActive

Separators can be either '|' or { type: 'separator' }.

Toolbar items

Values accepted by the toolbar prop:

Value	Description
'bold'	Bold
'italic'	Italic
'underline'	Underline
'strike'	Strikethrough
'heading1' to 'heading6'	Heading levels
'bulletList'	Unordered list
'orderedList'	Ordered list
'blockquote'	Blockquote
'code'	Inline code
'codeBlock'	Fenced code block
'link'	Insert or edit a link
'image'	Insert an image
'undo'	Undo
'redo'	Redo
'|'	Separator between groups

Contributing

Contributions are welcome. CONTRIBUTING.md covers the code of conduct, branch workflow, coding standards, tests, and pull request expectations.

Prerequisites: Node.js 20 or newer and Yarn 4 (enable Corepack with corepack enable if needed). See CONTRIBUTING for details.

Local development

git clone https://github.com/Ndevu12/RichTextEditor.git
cd RichTextEditor
yarn install
yarn --cwd playground install
yarn --cwd examples/react-demo install
yarn --cwd examples/nextjs-demo install
yarn dev

The dev script runs the library build in watch mode alongside the playground. This split is intentional:

• playground/ is the maintainer-focused local sandbox for in-repo development.
• examples/react-demo and examples/nextjs-demo are npm-consumer demos and must keep rich-text-editor-ndevu as a semver dependency (not link:/file:).

Before opening a pull request:

yarn lint
yarn verify:demos
yarn test
yarn --cwd playground install
yarn --cwd playground build
yarn --cwd examples/react-demo install
yarn --cwd examples/react-demo build
yarn --cwd examples/nextjs-demo install
yarn --cwd examples/nextjs-demo build

Reporting issues

Open an issue on GitHub. Include a clear title, steps to reproduce, expected vs. actual behavior, and your environment (OS, Node.js version, browser).

License

This project is licensed under the BSD 3-Clause License.

Copyright (c) 2026 Jean Paul Elisa NIYOKWIZERWA