Keyboard support
CKEditor 5 offers plenty of features to help you create your content in the most productive way. Using keyboard shortcuts is one of the simplest yet most efficient and popular ways to improve interaction with the software.
Keyboard support is enabled by default.
Below is a list of the most important keystrokes supported by CKEditor 5 and its features.
# Content editing
| Action | PC | Mac |
|---|---|---|
| Copy | Ctrl + C | Cmd + C |
| Paste | Ctrl + V | Cmd + V |
| Paste plain text and inherit target formatting | Ctrl + Shift + V | Cmd + Shift + V |
| Undo | Ctrl + Z | Cmd + Z |
| Redo | Ctrl + Y Ctrl + Shift + Z |
Cmd + Y Cmd + Shift + Z |
| Select all | Ctrl + A | Cmd + A |
| Bold | Ctrl + B | Cmd + B |
| Italic | Ctrl + I | Cmd + I |
| Link | Ctrl + K | Cmd + K |
| Insert a hard break (e.g. a new paragraph) | Enter | |
Insert a soft break (i.e. a <br>) |
Shift + Enter | |
| Nest the current list item (when in a list) | Tab | |
| Move out of link or inline style | ← ← / → → | |
| Revert autoformatting action | Backspace | |
| When a widget is selected (for example: image, table, horizontal line, etc.) | ||
| Insert a new paragraph directly after a widget | Enter | |
| Insert a new paragraph directly before a widget | Shift + Enter | |
| Display the caret to allow typing directly before a widget | ↑ / ← | |
| Display the caret to allow typing directly after a widget | ↓ / → | |
| In a table cell | ||
| Move the selection to the next cell | Tab | |
| Move the selection to the previous cell | Shift + Tab | |
| Insert a new table row (when in the last cell of a table) | Tab | |
| Navigate through the table | ↑ / → / ↓ / ← | |
# User interface and navigation
Use the following keystrokes for more efficient navigation in the CKEditor 5 user interface:
| Action | PC | Mac |
|---|---|---|
| Close contextual balloons and UI components like dropdowns | Esc | |
| Move focus to the visible contextual balloon | Tab | |
| Move focus between fields (inputs and buttons) in contextual balloons | Tab | |
| Move focus to the toolbar | Alt + F10 | Alt + F10 (may require Fn) |
| Navigate through the toolbar | ↑ / → / ↓ / ← | |
| Execute the currently focused button | Enter | |
# Related productivity features
In addition to using keyboard shortcuts, you may want to check the following productivity features:
- Autoformatting – Allows for using Markdown-like code to format text on the go.
- Automatic text transformation – Enables automatic turning snippets such as
(tm)into™and"foo"into“foo”. - Autolink – Turns the links and email addresses typed or pasted into the editor into active URLs.
- Mentions – Brings support for smart autocompletion.
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