This section describes how to work with a document in CKEditor. It contains information about writing in the editor window and points to some differences between using desktop and online editors. For detailed information regarding basic editor usage, including printing, undo and redo, text selection, or other useful features, refer to the last section of the article.

Creating Online Text

Since CKEditor is an online editor, documents created in it differ in some aspects from documents created in desktop applications. Text entered in a browser-based editor differs from a paged medium such as print mainly in that it is not divided into physical pages. Because of that the document created in CKEditor does not have a fixed size or format, like Letter or A4, and flows freely to fill the available screen estate, both in editing and in preview mode.

Another important thing to note is that CKEditor is usually used in a browser-based environment to create text published in the Internet and viewed in web browsers. Since different web browsers differ in their implementations of Internet standards and assume different default values for some formatting settings, the same content may not look alike for each user.

Writing As You Know It

On the other hand, when browsing the features supported by CKEditor, you will soon find that most functions of a desktop editor are available here and work in a highly intuitive manner. To write text, use the same basic keys that you are used to in desktop editors:

• Pressing Enter (or Return) ends a paragraph and starts a new one.
• Pressing Shift+Enter adds a line break which means you are still in the same paragraph, but the new text will start in a new line.
• Pressing Backspace deletes the text on the left side of the cursor; pressing Del deletes it on the right side. When you combine them with the Ctrlkey, the deletion process will work word by word.
• Characters (letters and numbers) are entered with your standard keyboard like in any other place including desktop documents or web browser forms. A dedicated CKEditor function lets you even insert some special characters like additional national letters, fractions, or extended punctuation.
• Many functions in CKEditor have their keyboard shortcuts. Check the full list to see how to create rich content in a fast and efficient manner.

Working with a Document

In CKEditor most features that let you work with a document are grouped together on the top of the toolbar. Most of them are simple buttons that turn the function on when you click them or open an appropriate dialog window.

For general information on using dialog windows please refer to the Dialog Windows section of the User's Guide.

Among the most important features that let you to work with a document in CKEditor are:

• Creating a new page
• Document preview
• Document source
• Templates
• Printing
• Undo and redo
• Cut, copy and paste
• Find and replace
• Selecting document contents
• Showing all document blocks
• Removing formats
• Saving content