Limit the number of character in tinyMCE

Question

Im using tinyMCe for my project.Everything is working fine but now i want to restrict the number of character that will be insert into tinyMce textarea

tinyMCE.init({
// General options
mode : "textareas",
theme : "simple",
plugins : "autolink,lists,pagebreak,style,table,save,advhr,advimage,advlink,emotions,media,noneditable,nonbreaking",

// Theme options
theme_advanced_buttons1 : "bold,italic,underline,strikethrough,|,justifyleft,justifycenter,justifyright,justifyfull,|,fontselect,fontsizeselect",
theme_advanced_buttons2 : "bullist,numlist,|,outdent,indent,|,undo,redo,|,link,unlink,anchor,image,code,|,forecolor,backcolor",
theme_advanced_toolbar_location : "top",
theme_advanced_toolbar_align : "left",
theme_advanced_statusbar_location : "bottom",
max_chars : "10",
max_chars_indicator : "lengthBox",
theme_advanced_resizing : true
});

I used :-

max_chars : "10",
max_chars_indicator : "lengthBox",

but still not working.Thanks in advance.

Barrera

I love to believe there was a plugin that operated on arguments like max_chars_indicator. There's the sourcecode of the MaxChars plugin – Racy

Also: jsfiddle.net/tmakin/wqbpsvbf – Racy

Answer 1

This works in tinyMCE 4.3.12 and also captures pasting:

EDIT: Fixed bugs and extended code to display a character counter under the editor. Possibly not the best way as it relies a bit on the current HTML structure of tinyMCE having the editor div before the hidden textarea.

This version only counts the text length and ignores HTML tag length. To count full HTML length, replace all "innerText" with "innerHTML".

tinymce.init({
    max_chars: 1000, // max. allowed chars
    setup: function (ed) {
        var allowedKeys = [8, 37, 38, 39, 40, 46]; // backspace, delete and cursor keys
        ed.on('keydown', function (e) {
            if (allowedKeys.indexOf(e.keyCode) != -1) return true;
            if (tinymce_getContentLength() + 1 > this.settings.max_chars) {
                e.preventDefault();
                e.stopPropagation();
                return false;
            }
            return true;
        });
        ed.on('keyup', function (e) {
            tinymce_updateCharCounter(this, tinymce_getContentLength());
        });
    },
    init_instance_callback: function () { // initialize counter div
        $('#' + this.id).prev().append('<div class="char_count" style="text-align:right"></div>');
        tinymce_updateCharCounter(this, tinymce_getContentLength());
    },
    paste_preprocess: function (plugin, args) {
        var editor = tinymce.get(tinymce.activeEditor.id);
        var len = editor.contentDocument.body.innerText.length;
        var text = $(args.content).text();
        if (len + text.length > editor.settings.max_chars) {
            alert('Pasting this exceeds the maximum allowed number of ' + editor.settings.max_chars + ' characters.');
            args.content = '';
        } else {
            tinymce_updateCharCounter(editor, len + text.length);
        }
    }
});

function tinymce_updateCharCounter(el, len) {
    $('#' + el.id).prev().find('.char_count').text(len + '/' + el.settings.max_chars);
}

function tinymce_getContentLength() {
    return tinymce.get(tinymce.activeEditor.id).contentDocument.body.innerText.length;
}

Reference: How can I prevent tinyMCE's paste event?

Canebrake

if using innerHTML, and you apply some formatting, the counter is not updated – Trapezium

This breaks at var text = $(args.content).text(); when args.content is not HTML, but e.g. text copied from notepad. – Granth

Late to the party, but try var text = $('<div/>').html(args.content).text(); to cover all bases regarding HMTL/plain text pasting. – Eutrophic

this.settings has been removed from TinyMCE 6. – Siege

Answer 2

TinyMCE 4+
+
jQuery

<textarea id="description_edit" name="description_edit"><?=htmlspecialchars($this->company->description);?></textarea>

<div><span>Characters left:</span> <span id="chars_left"></span></div>


<script type="text/javascript" src="/js/tinymce/tinymce.min.js"></script>
<script>
    var max_chars = 200; //max characters
    var max_for_html = 300; //max characters for html tags
    var allowed_keys = [8, 13, 16, 17, 18, 20, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 46];
    var chars_without_html = 0;

    function alarmChars() {
        if (chars_without_html > (max_chars - 25)) {
            $('#chars_left').css('color', 'red');
        } else {
            $('#chars_left').css('color', 'gray');
        }
    }

    $(function () {
        tinymce.init({
            selector: "#description_edit",
            theme: "modern",
            width: 320,
            height: 130,
            plugins: [
                "advlist autolink lists charmap print preview hr anchor pagebreak",
                "searchreplace visualblocks visualchars code insertdatetime media nonbreaking",
                "save table contextmenu directionality paste textcolor"
            ],
            image_advtab: true,
            language: 'en',
            menubar: false,
            statusbar: false,

            setup: function (ed) {
                ed.on("KeyDown", function (ed, evt) {
                    chars_without_html = $.trim(tinyMCE.activeEditor.getContent().replace(/(<([^>]+)>)/ig, "")).length;
                    chars_with_html = tinyMCE.activeEditor.getContent().length;
                    var key = ed.keyCode;

                    $('#chars_left').html(max_chars - chars_without_html);

                    if (allowed_keys.indexOf(key) != -1) {
                        alarmChars();
                        return;
                    }

                    if (chars_with_html > (max_chars + max_for_html)) {
                        ed.stopPropagation();
                        ed.preventDefault();
                    } else if (chars_without_html > max_chars - 1 && key != 8 && key != 46) {
                        alert('Characters limit!');
                        ed.stopPropagation();
                        ed.preventDefault();
                    }
                    alarmChars();
                });
            },

            toolbar: "bold italic underline | alignleft aligncenter alignright alignjustify | forecolor backcolor | bullist numlist | charmap",
            style_formats: [
                {title: 'Bold text', inline: 'b'},
                {title: 'Red text', inline: 'span', styles: {color: '#ff0000'}},
                {title: 'Red header', block: 'h1', styles: {color: '#ff0000'}},
                {title: 'Example 1', inline: 'span', classes: 'example1'},
                {title: 'Example 2', inline: 'span', classes: 'example2'},
                {title: 'Table styles'},
                {title: 'Table row 1', selector: 'tr', classes: 'tablerow1'}
            ]
        });

        chars_without_html = $.trim($("#description_edit").text().replace(/(<([^>]+)>)/ig, "")).length;
        $('#chars_left').html(max_chars - chars_without_html);
        alarmChars();
    });
</script>

Ossified

This will not work if you have multiple textareas on one page – Granth

Answer 3

Answers above were great! I've made a small amendment so that we can set max_chars by adding it as an attribute to textarea element itself

setup : function(ed) {
        ed.onKeyDown.add(function(ed, evt) {
            //if ( $(ed.getBody()).text().length+1 > ed.getParam('max_chars')){
            if ( $(ed.getBody()).text().length+1 > $(tinyMCE.get(tinyMCE.activeEditor.id).getElement()).attr('max_chars')){
                evt.preventDefault();
                evt.stopPropagation();
                return false;
            }
        });
    } 

Guelders

dear keen, i tried this sollution but firebug says that the onKeyDown event is not known, what am i doing wrong? – Mikkimiko

I tried this solution on Chrome but it gives me Uncaught TypeError: Cannot read property 'add' of undefined – Chronopher

This solution has a very ugly bug. It works, but when you enter more characters than it allows, it doesn't let you press more keys, not even the backspace/delete key :P – Annabellannabella

For Uncaught TypeError: Cannot read property 'add' of undefined Just use ed.on('keyDown', function(e) { ... }); :) – Effloresce

Answer 4

Providing support to backspace and delete keys. My version:

max_chars : 2000,
max_chars_indicator : ".maxCharsSpan",

setup : function(ed) {  
    wordcount = 0;
    wordCounter = function (ed, e) {
        text = ed.getContent().replace(/<[^>]*>/g, '').replace(/\s+/g, ' ');
        text = text.replace(/^\s\s*/, '').replace(/\s\s*$/, '');
        this.wordcount = ed.getParam('max_chars') - text.length;
        $(ed.getParam('max_chars_indicator')).text( this.wordcount + " (out of " +ed.getParam('max_chars')+ ") char(s) left." );
    };

    ed.onKeyUp.add( wordCounter );

    ed.onKeyDown.add(function(ed, e) {
    if (this.wordcount <= 0 && e.keyCode != 8 && e.keyCode != 46) {
         tinymce.dom.Event.cancel(e);
    }
});

Exsert

Answer 5

This is the solution that worked for me.

I basically took the code provided by @needfulthing and fixed the errors and improved it.

function initTinymce(){

        tinymce.init({
            selector: '.richtext-editable',
            plugins: ['paste'],

            max_chars: 50000, // max. allowed chars

            setup: function (ed) {                              
                var allowedKeys = [8, 13, 16, 17, 18, 20, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 46];
                ed.on('keydown', function (e) {
                    if (allowedKeys.indexOf(e.keyCode) != -1) return true;
                    if (tinymce_getContentLength() + 1 > this.settings.max_chars) {
                        e.preventDefault();
                        e.stopPropagation();
                        return false;
                    }
                    return true;
                });
                ed.on('keyup', function (e) {
                    tinymce_updateCharCounter(this, tinymce_getContentLength());
                });                             
            },

            init_instance_callback: function () { // initialize counter div
                $('#' + this.id).prev().append('<div class="char_count" style="text-align:right"></div>');
                tinymce_updateCharCounter(this, tinymce_getContentLength());
            },

            paste_preprocess: function (plugin, args) {                             
                var editor = tinymce.get(tinymce.activeEditor.id);
                var len = editor.contentDocument.body.innerText.length;                             
                if (len + args.content.length > editor.settings.max_chars) {
                    alert('Pasting this exceeds the maximum allowed number of ' + editor.settings.max_chars + ' characters for the input.');
                    args.content = '';
                }                                   
                tinymce_updateCharCounter(editor, len + args.content.length);                               
            }

        });

        function tinymce_updateCharCounter(el, len) {
            $('#' + el.id).prev().find('.char_count').text(len + '/' + el.settings.max_chars);
        }

        function tinymce_getContentLength() {
            return tinymce.get(tinymce.activeEditor.id).contentDocument.body.innerText.length;
        }

}

Luckin

with wishes for prosperous 2019 NY ! I tried to adopt your solution as a custom plugin for TinyMCE but it does not work. Thx if you look at my question stackoverflow.com/q/53986299/2637838 – Transfix

Related to my post, seems that you removed the tinymce.init part. The way I use it is by calling the initTinymce() function in some initial moment for example when the pages loads. Also you removed the selector: '.richtext-editable' part and I use it by setting that tag as a class style for an input element. – Luckin

Answer 6

Just to improve a little bit the good example given by Vladimir Miroshnichenko, to get a more accurate count, mainly for languages with accented characters.

I also inlcude the Javascript SpellChecker as the tinyMCE's one (4.1) cannot be used anymore. So the ed.addButton() will include a button in the toolbar to call $Spelling.SpellCheckInWindow('editors'). That perfectly works with tinyMCE 4.1.7.

I also added a count of words, if you prefer to trig the alarm on word instead of characters.

<textarea id="paragraph1" name="description_edit"><?=htmlspecialchars($this->company->description);?></textarea>

<div><span>Characters left:</span> <span id="chars_left"></span></div>

<script type="text/javascript" src="tinymce/tinymce.min.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="JavaScriptSpellCheck/include.js"></script>

<script>
var max_chars    = 300; //max characters
var max_for_html = 1000; //max characters for html tags
var allowed_keys = [8, 13, 16, 17, 18, 20, 33, 34, 35,36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 46];
var chars_without_html = 0;

function alarmChars(){
    if(chars_without_html > (max_chars - 25)){
        $('#chars_left').css('color','red');
    }else{
        $('#chars_left').css('color','gray');
    }
}        

$(function() {
    tinymce.init({
        selector: "textarea#paragraph1",
        theme: "modern",
        plugins: [
            "advlist autolink lists charmap preview hr anchor pagebreak",
            "visualblocks visualchars insertdatetime nonbreaking",
            "directionality paste textcolor"
        ],
        menubar:false,
        statusbar:false,

        toolbar: "bold italic underline | alignleft aligncenter alignright alignjustify | forecolor backcolor | bullist numlist | charmap | preview | Spellcheck", 

        setup : function(ed) {
            ed.addButton('Spellcheck', {
                title : 'Spellcheck',
                image : '/img/dict.png',
                onclick : function() {
                    // Add you own code to execute something on click
                    $Spelling.SpellCheckInWindow('editors');
                }
            });

            ed.on("KeyDown", function(ed,evt) {
                    whtml = tinyMCE.activeEditor.getContent();

                    without_html = whtml.replace(/(<([^>]+)>)/ig,"");
                    without_html = without_html.replace(/&([A-za- z])(?:acute|cedil|caron|circ|grave|orn|ring|slash|th|tilde|uml);/ig,'$1');
                    without_html = without_html.replace(/&hellip;/ig,'...');
                    without_html = without_html.replace(/&rsquo;/ig,'\'');
                    without_html = $.trim(without_html.replace(/&([A-za-z]{2})(?:lig);/ig,'$1'));

                    chars_without_html = without_html.length;
                    chars_with_html    = whtml.length;

                    wordscount = without_html.split(/[ ]+/).length;  // Just to get the wordcount, in case...

                    var key = ed.keyCode;

                    $('#chars_left').html(max_chars - chars_without_html);

                    if(allowed_keys.indexOf(key) != -1){
                        alarmChars();
                        return;                                                         
                    }

                    if (chars_with_html > (max_chars + max_for_html)){
                        ed.stopPropagation();
                        ed.preventDefault();
                    }else if (chars_without_html > max_chars-1 && key != 8 && key != 46){
                        alert('Characters limit!');
                        ed.stopPropagation();
                        ed.preventDefault();
                    }
                    alarmChars();                                                   
                }
            );
        },
    });

    whtml = $("#paragraph1").text();

    without_html = whtml.replace(/(<([^>]+)>)/ig,"");
    without_html = without_html.replace(/&([A-za-z])(?:acute|cedil|caron|circ|grave|orn|ring|slash|th|tilde|uml);/ig,'$1');
    without_html = without_html.replace(/&hellip;/ig,'...');
    without_html = without_html.replace(/&rsquo;/ig,'\'');
    without_html = $.trim(without_html.replace(/&([A-za-z]{2})(?:lig);/ig,'$1'));

    chars_without_html = without_html.length;

    $('#chars_left').html(max_chars - chars_without_html);
    alarmChars();                                           
});    

I hope it will help as tinyMCE team seems to be a bit stubborn on this subject...

Corbel

I wonder if this works when you have multiples editors on a page. I am going to test it out and see - I hope so because I have been banging code all night and all day. – Soapy

Answer 7

    // Returns text statistics for the specified editor by id
function getStats(id) {
    var body = tinymce.get(id).getBody(), text = tinymce.trim(body.innerText || body.textContent);

    return {
        chars: text.length,
        words: text.split(/[\w\u2019\'-]+/).length
    };
} 





function submitForm() {
        // Check if the user has entered less than 10 characters
        if (getStats('content').chars < 10) {
            alert("You need to enter 1000 characters or more.");
            return;
        }

        // Check if the user has entered less than 1 words
        if (getStats('content').words < 1) {
            alert("You need to enter 1 words or more.");
            return;
        }

        // Submit the form
        document.forms[0].submit();
    }

http://www.tinymce.com/wiki.php/How_to_limit_number_of_characters/words

Hope it helps

Trilbi

I dont want to limit the character upon form submission.Suppose i want to add limit character upto 10 and if user enter 11th character it should not allow – Barrera

Then you want more or less same code but in a $(content).keyup(function(e) {}) – Trilbi

Answer 8

There is no tinymce configuration setting max_chars, except you implement it yourself:

tinyMCE.init({
   ...
   max_chars : "10",
   setup : function(ed) {
      ed.onKeyDown.add(function(ed, evt) {

        if ( $(ed.getBody()).text().length > ed.getParam('max_char')){
          e.preventDefault();
          e.stopPropagation();
          return false;
        } 

      });
   }
});

Jonniejonny

Answer 9

the solution worked for me but with a small bug. If you see the character count is not right, thats because you use

ed.on("KeyDown")

change it to

ed.on("KeyUp") 

,then it will work fine. I havent tested it with ('Change'). it may works too!

Tananarive

Answer 10

tinyMCE not provide any way to limit the character and restrict user to enter more character, the only way is use any explicit plugin or your logic for it. Below code show issue raised with me, it is working properly.

This is used on textarea having id summary and one another paragrap id character_count that used to show character count. User is not able to enter more character than max limit, Inthis case only backspace key is working. You can free to use any key by giving ascii value if the key in condition.

tinymce.init({
  selector: '#summary',  // change this value according to your HTML
  auto_focus: 'element1',
  statusbar: false,
  toolbar: 'undo redo | styleselect | bold italic underline | formatselect | aligncenter | fontselect',
  setup: function (ed) {
            ed.on('KeyDown', function (e) { 
                var max = 150;
                var count = CountCharacters();
                if (count >= max) {
                        if(e.keyCode != 8 && e.keyCode != 46)
                          tinymce.dom.Event.cancel(e);
                          document.getElementById("character_count").innerHTML = "Maximun allowed character is: 150";

                } else {
                    document.getElementById("character_count").innerHTML = "Characters: " + count;
                 }
            });

        }
 });

 function CountCharacters() {
    var body = tinymce.get("summary").getBody();
    var content = tinymce.trim(body.innerText || body.textContent);
    return content.length;
};

Bluet

Answer 11

The solution below works good for me: 1 - in the html code of the textarea it is necessary to include the value of maxlength and id of textarea.
2 - in script part, code below. If you want, uncomment the alert() line, and put your message.

<script type="text/javascript">
  tinymce.init ({
    ...
    ...
      setup: function(ed) {
        var maxlength = parseInt($("#" + (ed.id)).attr("maxlength"));
        var count = 0;
        ed.on("keydown", function(e) {
          count++;
          if (count > maxlength) {
            // alert("You have reached the character limit");
            e.stopPropagation();
            return false;
          }
        });
     },

<textarea type="text" id="test" name="test" maxlength="10"></textarea>

Rural

Answer 12

Ok with the new tinyMCE4X thing's change a little bit.

    tinymce.init({
    charLimit : 10, // this is a default value which can get modified later
    setup: function(editor) {
        editor.on('change', function(e) {
            //define local variables
            var tinymax, tinylen, htmlcount;
            //setting our max character limit
            tinymax = this.settings.charLimit;
            //grabbing the length of the curent editors content
            tinylen = this.getContent().length;
            if (tinylen > tinymax) {
                alert('to big');
            }
        });
    }
    });

Gaytan

The change event is called after the editor loses focus. You will not see an alert while you are typing to let you know the charLimit has been exceeded. – Bergquist

Answer 13

If you are here maybe you are looking for simple solution. Here is my solution. It is not perfect, but it is very simple

var max_length = 3;
    tinymce.init({
        selector: '#description',
        // some my settings for tiny mce
        toolbar: ' undo redo | bold italic | formatselect',
        setup : function(ed) {
           // important part
           ed.on("keypress", function(event){
                // get content of the tinymce and remove tags
                // tinymce will be adding tags while you type in it.
                // when tags are removed, you will heave real input length (the one that customer sees)
                var content =  tinymce.activeEditor.getContent().replace(/(<([^>]+)>)/ig,"");
                // now just compare that length to your prefered length.
                // if it is larger or same, return false, and that will disregard last input.
                if(content.length >= max_length){
                    return false;
                }
            });
        }

    });

Hepatic

Answer 14

TinyMCE + AngularJS

Here's how you can limit max number of characters on frontend using ng-maxlength directive from AngularJS.

Param : ngMaxlength
Type : number
Details : Sets maxlength validation error key if the value is longer than maxlength.

Please note that this directive doesn't just count the displayed text characters, it counts all the text inside <textarea> in HTML like tags and scripts.

First of all, include AngularJS, TinyMCE 4 distributive, and AngularUI wrapper for TinyMCE.

HTML:

<form name="form" action="#">
    <textarea ng-model="myMCEContent" ui-tinymce ng-maxlength="200" name="body"></textarea>
    <span ng-show="form.body.$error.maxlength" class="error">Reached limit!/span>
</form>

JavaScript:

angular.module('myApp', ['ui.tinymce'])
.config(['$sceProvider', function($sceProvider) {
    // Disable Strict Contextual Escaping
    $sceProvider.enabled(false);
}])
.constant('uiTinymceConfig', {/*...*/})
.controller('myCtrl', ['$scope', function($scope) {
    // ...
}]);

jsFiddle

! Attention !

Read the manual before using this solution to fully understand consequences of disabling SCE in AngularJS: $sce service.

Workmanship

Ideally TinyMCE would work with angular's maxlength.. it is a pity that SCE has to be disabled, however you've made it clear in your answer, thanks – Gorman

Answer 15

easiest way:

contentContentLenght = tinyMCE.activeEditor.getContent({format : 'text'}).length; //takes lenght of current editor

if (contentContentLenght > 1499) {
                    e.preventDefault();
                    e.stopPropagation();
                    return false;
                } // 1500 is my limit in mine project.

to prevent paste:

editor.on('paste', function(e){
            contentContentLenght = tinyMCE.activeEditor.getContent({format : 'text'}).length;
            var data = e.clipboardData.getData('Text');
            if (data.length > (1500 - contentContentLenght)) {
                return false;
            } else {
                return true;
            }
        });

Colotomy

Answer 16

Thariama's answers was awesome just implemented it and it was just what I was looking for, just made a few modifications:

    max_chars : "10",
    setup : function(ed) {
        ed.onKeyDown.add(function(ed, evt) {
            if ( $(ed.getBody()).text().length+1 > ed.getParam('max_chars')){
                evt.preventDefault();
                evt.stopPropagation();
                return false;
            }
        });
    } 

Thanks Thariama.

Glarus

Doesn't prevent pasting past the max_chars limit, only typing. – Levulose