CKSource

The following article describes some known issues that you might encounter when installing and using the CKEditor for Drupal module.

CKEditor does not work in my theme

Your theme may be missing the following code:

<?php print $scripts; ?>

Add that line of code to the head section of your theme.

Another possibility is that the following code might be missing in your theme:

<?php print $closure; ?>

The solution is similar as above — you need to add that line to your theme at the end of its code.

Finally, you can also switch to a different theme.

Known module incompatibilities

At the moment CKEditor will not show up when the following modules are enabled:

• Theme developer
• Theme Builder

Images are not displayed when submitted

Most probably you need to properly configure the input format. Either set it to Full HTML or add the <img> tag to the Filtered HTML format. The full list of tags that should be allowed is available in the README.txt file. Make sure that you have read the "Setting Up Filters" section in the README.txt file or on this page: http://drupal.ckeditor.com/filters

I followed the instructions, but CKEditor does not show up

First of all make sure that CKEditor is enabled on this specific page. Take a look into the source code of your page and search for something similar to:

"ckeditor": { "module_path":

If you cannot find such code, it means that CKEditor is disabled on that page/field. Make sure that you have the right permissions to use CKEditor and check your CKEditor profile (include/exclude settings, minimum rows value).

If CKEditor is enabled, but it does not show up, try the following steps:

1. Switch to the default theme (Garland). If CKEditor appears, read the "CKEditor does not work in my theme" instructions.
   If your theme already contains the closure and scripts statements, read below.
2. Make sure that you are using a browser that is compatible with CKEditor.
3. On some occasions other installed modules may cause CKEditor not to show up (although if you look at page source, you will see the CKEditor code).
   Instead of CKEditor you may see a very small textarea.
   This mostly happens when some other module causes a JavaScript error and CKEditor cannot load because of this.
   To check this:
   • Write down the list of currently installed modules.
   • Disable all additional modules.
   • If CKEditor shows up, start enabling the modules that you disabled in the previous step and find out which module is incompatible with CKEditor.
     Use the project's website to report a new bug and provide the following details:
     • Drupal version,
     • CKEditor module version,
     • CKEditor version,
     • The name and version of the incompatible module.
     • If additional steps are required to reproduce this issue, like creating a new special content or configuring this additional module in a special way, provide a detailed list of steps to follow.
   • If the step above did not help, disable all additional modules and switch to the Garland theme. Clear the browser cache.
     If CKEditor still does not work, it means that it may be corrupted.
     Upload CKEditor again using an FTP client that warns you when files are truncated or corrupted.
   • If CKEditor works for the Garland theme with all modules enabled, but it does not work for your theme with all modules disabled, then your theme is a problem.
     Use the project's website to report a new bug and provide the following details:
     • Drupal version,
     • CKEditor module version,
     • CKEditor version,
     • The name and version of the incompatible theme.
4. Finally, if nothing helped, to find out where exactly the error occurred, you may use Firefox with the Firebug extension.
   Use the project's website to create a new support request providing as much information as possible, including the exact JavaScript error message that you got.

Selected toolbar does not show for User 1

There are two reasons why you are seeing a different toolbar (or do not see CKEditor at all):

• If the Allow users to customize CKEditor appearance option is enabled, each user may override the profile settings in the Rich text editor settings section of the admin/user/N/edit page (My Account -> Edit).
• A different profile is used for User 1 than you expect.
  User 1 must be assigned a system role that corresponds to the privileges required. If no role is assigned to User 1, this user will have the privileges of an "authenticated user" (usually it is the Advanced profile).

The CKEditor component is not installed correctly

Please remember that installing the CKEditor module is a two-step process. You need to download and unpack:

• the CKEditor module that integrates CKEditor with Drupal;
• CKEditor, the rich text editor.

If your CKEditor does not show, you should check whether all files were extracted correctly. The /modules/ckeditor/ckeditor/ directory should contain the following files: ckeditor.js, config.js, contents.css as well as directories named skins, themes, lang, images.

The correct directory structure is as follows:

modules               <dir>
   ckeditor           <dir>
      ckeditor.module
      ckeditor.admin.inc
      ...
      ckeditor        <dir>
         _source      <dir>
         images       <dir>
         lang         <dir>
         plugins      <dir>
         skins        <dir>
         themes       <dir>
         COPY_HERE.txt
         ckeditor.js
         ...

CKEditor does not work after upgrading

This may be caused by the browser cache. Clear your browser cache and restart the browser if clearing the cache did not help.

If you upgraded the CKEditor module, make sure that all roles with "access ckeditor" permissions are assigned to at least one CKEditor profile.

Text alignment does not work

In the ckeditor.config.js file (located in the CKEditor module directory), the following classes are defined to provide the text alignment functionality:

config.justifyClasses = [ 'rteleft', 'rtecenter', 'rteright', 'rtejustify' ];

Unfortunately, some themes may override these styles and text alignment may not work as expected.

If you are using the Full HTML input format, you may simply comment out this line:

//config.justifyClasses = [ 'rteleft', 'rtecenter', 'rteright', 'rtejustify' ];

CKEditor will then use inline styles instead:

<p style="text-align: right;">sample text</p>

The problem is that inline styles may only be used with the Full HTML format. Filtered HTML will strip that code, so do not use this solution with this input format.

For Filtered HTML things are a bit more complicated. For example if your theme defines such CSS style:

.content p { text-align: left; }

the text-align property set in the .rteright class will not work.

To align the <p> tag, you will have to edit the modules/ckeditor/ckeditor.css file and create a style that will be applied to the <p> tag:

.content p.rteleft {
  text-align: left;
}
.content p.rteright {
  text-align: right;
}
.content p.rtecenter {
  text-align: center;
}
.content p.rtejustify {
  text-align: justify;
}

Use DOM inspector (in Firefox) to check why the alignment does not work and to correct your CSS styles. There is no universal workaround for this situation.

Line breaks removed when editing content previously authored without using CKEditor

The problem lies in the way you configured your input filters. Before you enabled CKEditor, you probably had the Line break converter enabled. Now you are trying to edit the same content with the Line break converter disabled, thus the line breaks are removed.

Possible workarounds:

• Enable the Line break converter (not recommended).
• Create a new input format with the Line break converter enabled. Use it just for old articles (recommended).
• Start with CKEditor disabled by default, replace all new line characters manually with a <br /> tag, then use toggle to switch to WYSIWYG mode.

If you are a PHP programmer, you may try the approach proposed by BakerQ in http://drupal.org/node/240633.

Quote symbols are being changed to quote entities

Some modules like Typogrify or SmartyPants require special handling of HTML entities. For example, by default CKEditor will convert a double quote character (") to ". To disable processing of HTML entities, open the CKEditor profile settings and go to the Advanced Options section. If you set the HTML Entities option is to No, CKEditor will no longer convert all applicable characters to HTML entities.

CKEditor toolbar does not show up

If the CKEditor toolbar does not show up and the styles/themes seem to be corrupted, it is possible that you uploaded the files via FTP in the ASCII mode. Make sure you are uploading the files in the binary mode.

CKEditor adds <p>&nbsp;</p>

Sometimes you may notice that when editing nodes, the spacing between paragraphs is being doubled. This may be caused by the HTML Purifier module when the AutoParagraph option is enabled. When you disable it, make sure to clear HTML Purifier cache.