Automatic text transformation (autocorrect)

The TextTransformation feature brings support for implementing autocorrection options, i.e. automatically turning predefined snippets into their improved forms. Here are some examples that will be transformed in your WYSIWYG editor:

From	To
(tm)	™
1/2	½
->	→
--	–
"foo"	“foo”

This feature comes pre-configured with a set of the most popular transformations. You can, however, disable existing ones or add your own autocorrect entries.

While most often this feature is used to easily insert special characters that are not present on your keyboard, it can also be used to achieve other goals. For instance, you can improve the users’ productivity by configuring it to expand some abbreviations (e.g. team or company names) into their full forms.

You may find additional interesting details and usage examples in the Automatic text transformation in CKEditor 5 blog post after reading this guide.

# Demo

Type snippets such as (c), 3/4, !=, ---, "foo" into the rich-text editor below and see how they get transformed into their typographically nicer forms. You can see the complete list of predefined transformations in the TextTransformationConfig documentation.

# Related productivity features

In addition to enabling automatic text transformations, you may want to check the following productivity features:

• Autoformatting – Allows to quickly apply formatting to the content you are writing.
• Autolink – Turns the links and email addresses typed or pasted into the editor into active URLs.
• Mentions – Brings support for smart autocompletion.

# Configuring transformations

This feature comes pre-configured with a set of transformations. You can find the list of them in the TextTransformationConfig documentation.

By using the options defined below you can extend, limit or override this list:

• typing.transformations.include – Overrides the default configuration. When overriding the default configuration you can reuse the predefined transformations (by using their names that can be found in the TextTransformationConfig documentation) and write your own transformations.
• typing.transformations.remove – Removes predefined transformations.
• typing.transformations.extra – Adds your custom transformations to the predefined ones.

# Example: Using transformations.include

For instance, in order to use only the transformations from the “quotes” and “typography” groups and to turn CKE into CKEditor, you can use the transformations.include property like this:

ClassicEditor
    .create( editorElement, {
        typing: {
            transformations: {
                include: [
                    // Use only the 'quotes' and 'typography' groups.
                    'quotes',
                    'typography',

                    // Plus some custom transformation.
                    { from: 'CKE', to: 'CKEditor' }
                ],
            }
        }
    } )
    .then( ... )
    .catch( ... );

# Example: Using transformations.remove and extra

Another example, removing a few transformations and adding some extra ones:

ClassicEditor
    .create( editorElement, {
        typing: {
            transformations: {
                remove: [
                    // Do not use the transformations from the
                    // 'symbols' and 'quotes' groups.
                    'symbols',
                    'quotes',

                    // As well as the following transformations.
                    'arrowLeft',
                    'arrowRight'
                ],

                extra: [
                    // Add some custom transformations – e.g. for emojis.
                    { from: ':)', to: '🙂' },
                    { from: ':+1:', to: '👍' },
                    { from: ':tada:', to: '🎉' },

                    // You can also define patterns using regular expressions.
                    // Note: The pattern must end with `$` and all its fragments must be wrapped
                    // with capturing groups.
                    // The following rule replaces ` "foo"` with ` «foo»`.
                    {
                        from: /(^|\s)(")([^"]*)(")$/,
                        to: [ null, '«', null, '»' ]
                    },

                    // Finally, you can define `to` as a callback.
                    // This (naive) rule will auto-capitalize the first word after a period, question mark, or an exclamation mark.
                    {
                        from: /([.?!] )([a-z])$/,
                        to: matches => [ null, matches[ 1 ].toUpperCase() ]
                    }
                ],
            }
        }
    } )
    .then( ... )
    .catch( ... );

You can read more about the format of transformation rules in TextTransformationDescription.

You can test the custom rules defined above in the demo. Try the emojis and see the editor automatically capitalize words after a full stop, a quotation mark and an exclamation mark.

# Installation

To add this feature to your rich-text editor, install the @ckeditor/ckeditor5-typing package:

npm install --save @ckeditor/ckeditor5-typing

And add it to your plugin list configuration:

import TextTransformation from '@ckeditor/ckeditor5-typing/src/texttransformation';

ClassicEditor
    .create( document.querySelector( '#editor' ), {
        plugins: [ TextTransformation, ... ],
    } )
    .then( ... )
    .catch( ... );

# Contribute

The source code of the feature is available on GitHub in https://github.com/ckeditor/ckeditor5/tree/master/packages/ckeditor5-typing.