In today’s digital age, communication is key. Whether it’s writing an email, drafting a blog post,
or creating a social media update, we’re always looking for ways to improve the way we
communicate. That’s where a rich text editor comes in. With a rich text editor, you can easily
format your text, add images, and embed videos without any technical knowledge.

In this blog post, we’ll walk you through how to create a rich text editor using React and Draft.js.
We’ll also cover what a rich text editor is, its uses, and some alternatives to Draft.js.

What is a Rich Text Editor?

A rich text editor is a tool that allows you to format text in a document or web page. Unlike plain
text, editors like Notepad or TextEdit, rich text editors provide a range of formatting options, such as bold, italic, underline, font size and style, and color. They also allow you to add images, links, and other media to your text.

A rich text editor is an essential tool for content creators, bloggers, and website developers. It
makes it easy to create professional-looking content without any coding or technical knowledge.

How to Create a Rich Text Editor with Draft.js?

Draft.js is an open-source rich text editor framework developed by Facebook. It’s built on top of
React provides a set of reusable React components that you can use to build your own
custom rich text editor.

To get started with Draft.js, you’ll need to create a new React project using create-react-app or
any other method of your choice. Once you have your project set up, you can install Draft.js using npm:

npm install draft-js –save

Next, you’ll need to import the necessary Draft.js components into your code:

import React, { Component } from ‘react’;
import { Editor, EditorState } from ‘draft-js’;
import ‘draft-js/dist/Draft.css’;

The Editor component is the main component of Draft.js. It renders the text editor and provides
all the necessary methods and properties to interact with the text. The EditorState object is a
plain JavaScript object that represents the current state of the editor.

To render the editor in your component, you can create a new instance of the Editor component and pass the editorState property:

class RichTextEditor extends Component {
constructor(props) {
super(props);
this.state = { editorState: EditorState.createEmpty() };
}
onChange = editorState => {
this.setState({ editorState });
};
render() {
const { editorState } = this.state;
return (
<Editor editorState={editorState} onChange={this.onChange} />
);
}
}

This will render a basic text editor with all the default formatting options. You can now start
customizing the editor by adding your own toolbar, custom styles, and other features.

Uses of a Rich Text Editor –

A rich text editor can be used in a variety of applications, such as:

Blogging platforms: A rich text editor makes it easy for bloggers to create and format their blog posts. They can add images, videos, and other media to their posts without any technical
knowledge.

Email clients: Email clients like Gmail and Outlook use rich text editors to allow users to format
their emails. Users can change the font size, style, and color of their text, add hyperlinks and
attachments, and more.

Content management systems: A content management system (CMS) like WordPress or Drupal uses a rich text editor to allow website owners to create and edit their website’s content. They can add and format text, add images and videos, and publish their content without any coding knowledge.