Rich text editors are no longer just an option in today’s agile, tech-based environment. As companies continue to invest in and expand their tech stack, finding a rich text editor that strategically adds value, creates more opportunity and allows you to scale faster is paramount. After all, your choice of rich text editor can have a direct impact on numerous functions of the business. Our recent survey found that the most popular use cases for rich text editors include integration with a wide variety of applications such as CMS, LMS, email, CRM, DMS, workflow and automation.
So, how to choose with so many options in the marketplace? Here are five must haves for your rich text editor.
Configuration and customization
It’s crucial to have a rich text editor that will answer the requirements of your application. This can include configuring toolbars and menus, formatting options for content and other basic functions.
Testing the ease of configuring basic functions is essential to onboarding and utilizing a rich text editor that will benefit your project. In fact, customization is key to respondents in the State of Rich Text Editors survey, who note they want to be able to control the editor on their terms.
Ultimately, the best rich text editors provide intuitive and secure user experiences while also clearly giving opportunities for customization.
Media integration
Gone are the days of the solely written word. Now, media integration allows for more engaging and helpful content, breaking up text with use of logos, images and graphics.
And while this integration is important, it’s also an area where rich text editors can improve. Respondents ranked images as the most popular feature to enhance as they look for more advanced ways to integrate images into their applications.
Real-time collaboration
Look for a rich text editor that not only includes web accessibility and spell checking, but also the ability to work together in real-time. Collaborative text editing helps reduce back-and-forth and minimizes feedback delays, improving productivity and streamlining clunky workflows. From quick access to documents and devices to seamless communication between staff, collaboration allows teams to put their best content forward.
Seamless WYSIWYG interface
WYSIWYG stands for “what you see is what you get.” In the world of rich text editors, this means the text and imagery you see within the program is exactly how the final online product will appear. Gone are the days of complex HTML, CSS or JavaScript formatting where content is potentially altered between the code and the final product.
A modern WYSIWYG interface enables you to see your content as you create and edit it, while also creating a corresponding markup version behind the scenes. This integration between the editor and the HTML code helps fix incorrect or unnecessary code and allows for easy output.
Great engineering
Despite growing digital trends, the best rich text editors return to the basics and harness the importance of doing the fundamentals well. They prioritize user and developer friendliness, making integration and customization easy, while also fixing bugs and streamlining updates.
The result is a strong platform that doesn’t drain developer resources and instead focuses on innovation as well as solid engineering. When looking at rich text editor options, focus on prioritizing security, responsiveness and customization first and fancy features second.
The future of rich text editors
Rich text editors that are customizable, collaborative and integrated will be a core tenant of an organization’s tech stack in the future. And while self-hosted still remains the preferred choice of deployment, companies must be ready to select a solution that can embrace a cloud-based future.
According to Gartner, by 2025, over half of IT spending will shift from traditional solutions to the cloud and almost two-thirds of application software spend will go toward cloud technologies. We have seen similar trends within our own company, with a 300 percent increase in cloud options over the last few years.
Connected environments and digital workplaces are requiring more flexible software and tech tools to serve the modern marketplace. These five must-haves lay the groundwork for future use cases for rich text editing.
