title: Restricted editing menu-title: Restricted editing
The restricted editing feature allows you to define which parts of a document can be editable for a group of users who have more restricted editing rights.
In order to do that, this feature introduces two editing modes:
You can imagine a workflow in which a certain group of users is responsible for creating templates of documents while a second group of users can only fill the gaps (for example, fill the missing data, like names, dates, product names, etc.).
By using this feature, the users of your application will be able to create template documents. In a certain way, this feature could be used to generate forms with rich-text capabilities.
See also the {@link features/read-only read-only feature} that lets you turn the entire WYSIWYG editor into read-only mode.
The demo below allows you to emulate both modes. You can start from creating a template of the document in the standard editing mode.
Then you can switch to the restricted editing mode to see how the editable and non-editable regions behave.
Tip: Use <kbd>Tab</kbd> to navigate from one editable region to another (and <kbd>Shift</kbd>+<kbd>Tab</kbd> to move back) in the restricted mode.
{@snippet features/restricted-editing}
To add this feature to your rich-text editor, install the @ckeditor/ckeditor5-restricted-editing package:
npm install --save @ckeditor/ckeditor5-restricted-editing
In order to initialize the editor in the standard editing mode, add the {@link module:restricted-editing/standardeditingmode~StandardEditingMode} plugin and add the 'restrictedEditingException' button to the toolbar:
import StandardEditingMode from '@ckeditor/ckeditor5-restricted-editing/src/standardeditingmode';
ClassicEditor
.create( document.querySelector( '#editor' ), {
plugins: [ StandardEditingMode, ... ],
toolbar: [ 'restrictedEditingException', ... ]
} )
.then( ... )
.catch( ... );
In order to initialize the editor in the restricted editing mode, add the {@link module:restricted-editing/restrictededitingmode~RestrictedEditingMode} plugin and add the 'restrictedEditing' button to the toolbar:
import RestrictedEditingMode from '@ckeditor/ckeditor5-restricted-editing/src/restrictededitingmode';
ClassicEditor
.create( document.querySelector( '#editor' ), {
plugins: [ RestrictedEditingMode, ... ],
toolbar: [ 'restrictedEditing', ... ]
} )
.then( ... )
.catch( ... );
Read more about {@link builds/guides/integration/installing-plugins installing plugins}.
The {@link module:restricted-editing/standardeditingmode~StandardEditingMode} plugin registers:
'restrictedEditingException' button that allows marking regions as editable.'restrictedEditingException'} command that allows marking regions as editable.The {@link module:restricted-editing/restrictededitingmode~RestrictedEditingMode} plugin registers:
'restrictedEditing' dropdown that allows navigating between editable regions.'goToPreviousRestrictedEditingException'} and 'goToNextRestrictedEditingException' commands that allow navigating between editable regions.
We recommend using the official {@link framework/guides/development-tools#ckeditor-5-inspector CKEditor 5 inspector} for development and debugging. It will give you tons of useful information about the state of the editor such as internal data structures, selection, commands, and many more.
When using real-time collaboration, all the connected users should always be in the same mode. It is not possible to have a different list of plugins enabled among users of a single collaborative session.
The source code of the feature is available on GitHub in https://github.com/ckeditor/ckeditor5-restricted-editing.