Link

The link feature lets you insert hyperlinks into your content and provides a UI to create and edit them. Thanks to the autolink plugin, typed or pasted URLs and email addresses automatically turn into working links.

# Demo

Use the link toolbar button or press Ctrl/Cmd+K to create a new link. Clicking a link opens a contextual toolbar. The toolbar lets you edit existing links or unlink them with a click.

# Typing around links

CKEditor 5 allows for typing both at the inner and outer boundaries of links to make editing easier for the users.

To type inside a link, move the caret to its (start or end) boundary. As long as the link remains highlighted (by default: blue), typing and applying formatting happens within its boundaries:

To type before or after a link, move the caret to its boundary, then press the Arrow key (← or →) away from the link once. The link is no longer highlighted and whatever text you type or formatting you apply will not be inside the link:

# Installation

After installing the editor, add the feature to your plugin list and toolbar configuration:

import { ClassicEditor, AutoLink, Link } from 'ckeditor5';

ClassicEditor
	.create( document.querySelector( '#editor' ), {
		licenseKey: '<YOUR_LICENSE_KEY>', // Or 'GPL'.
		plugins: [ Link, AutoLink, /* ... */ ],
		toolbar: [ 'link', /* ... */ ],
		link: {
			// Configuration.
		}
	} )
	.then( /* ... */ )
	.catch( /* ... */ );

# Custom link attributes (decorators)

By default, all links created in the editor have the href="..." attribute in the editor data. If you want your links to have additional link attributes, link decorators provide an easy way to configure and manage them.

There are two types of link decorators you can use:

• Automatic – They match links against predefined rules and manage their attributes based on the results.
• Manual – They allow users to control link attributes individually using the editor UI.

# Demo

In the editor below, all external links get the target="_blank" and rel="noopener noreferrer" attributes (automatic decorator). Click a link and edit it to see that you can control the download attribute of specific links using the switch button in the editing balloon (manual decorator). Take a look at the editor data below (updated live) to see the extra link attributes.

The following code runs this editor. Learn more about the configuration of the feature.

ClassicEditor
    .create( document.querySelector( '#editor' ), {
        // ... Other configuration options ...
        link: {
            // Automatically add target="_blank" and rel="noopener noreferrer" to all external links.
            addTargetToExternalLinks: true,

            // Let the users control the "download" attribute of each link.
            decorators: [
                {
                    mode: 'manual',
                    label: 'Downloadable',
                    attributes: {
                        download: 'download'
                    }
                }
            ]
        }
    } )
    .then( /* ... */ )
    .catch( /* ... */ );

# Configuration

You can configure decorators through definitions provided in the config.link.decorators configuration option.

Each decorator definition must have a unique name. For manual decorators, the name also represents the decorator in the document model.

# Adding target and rel attributes to external links

A common use case for (automatic) link decorators is adding the target="_blank" and rel="noopener noreferrer" attributes to all external links in the document. A dedicated config.link.addTargetToExternalLinks configuration exists for that purpose. When you set this option to true, all links starting with http://, https://, or // are “decorated” with target and rel attributes.

ClassicEditor
    .create( document.querySelector( '#editor' ), {
        // ... Other configuration options ...
        link: {
            addTargetToExternalLinks: true
        }
        // More of the editor's configuration.
            // ...
    } )
    .then( /* ... */ )
    .catch( /* ... */ );

Internally, this configuration corresponds to an automatic decorator with the following definition:

ClassicEditor
    .create( document.querySelector( '#editor' ), {
        // ... Other configuration options ...
        link: {
            decorators: {
                addTargetToExternalLinks: {
                    mode: 'automatic',
                    callback: url => /^(https?:)?\/\//.test( url ),
                    attributes: {
                        target: '_blank',
                        rel: 'noopener noreferrer'
                    }
                }
            }
        }
        // More of the editor's configuration.
            // ...
    } )
    .then( /* ... */ )
    .catch( /* ... */ );

If you want to leave the decision whether a link should open in a new tab to the users, do not use the config.link.addTargetToExternalLinks configuration. Define a new manual decorator with the following definition instead:

ClassicEditor
    .create( document.querySelector( '#editor' ), {
        // ... Other configuration options ...
        link: {
            decorators: {
                openInNewTab: {
                    mode: 'manual',
                    label: 'Open in a new tab',
                    attributes: {
                        target: '_blank',
                        rel: 'noopener noreferrer'
                    }
                }
            }
        }
        // More of the editor's configuration.
            // ...
    } )
    .then( /* ... */ )
    .catch( /* ... */ );

# Adding default link protocol to external links

A default link protocol can be useful when the user forgets to type the full URL address to an external source or website. Sometimes copying the text, like for example ckeditor.com, and converting it to a link may cause some issues. As a result, the created link will direct you to yourdomain.com/ckeditor.com because of the missing protocol. This makes the link relative to the site where it appears.

After you enable the config.link.defaultProtocol configuration option, the link feature will be able to handle this issue for you. By default, it does not fix the passed link value, but when you set config.link.defaultProtocol to, for example, http://, the plugin will add the given protocol to every link that may need it (like ckeditor.com, example.com, etc. where [protocol://]example.com is missing).

See a basic configuration example:

ClassicEditor
    .create( document.querySelector( '#editor' ), {
        // ... Other configuration options ...
        link: {
            defaultProtocol: 'http://'
        }
        // More of the editor's configuration.
            // ...
    } )
    .then( /* ... */ )
    .catch( /* ... */ );

# Adding custom protocols in links

By default, a minimal set of protocols is allowed to be used in the links. Any URL with an unrecognized protocol will be changed to ‘#’. You can overwrite the list of protocols by using config.link.allowedProtocols.

See a configuration example:

ClassicEditor
    .create( document.querySelector( '#editor' ), {
        // ... Other configuration options ...
        link: {
            // You can use `s?` suffix like below to allow both `http` and `https` protocols at the same time.
            allowedProtocols: [ 'https?', 'tel', 'sms', 'sftp', 'smb', 'slack' ]
        }
        // More of the editor's configuration.
        // ...
    } )
    .then( /* ... */ )
    .catch( /* ... */ );

# Adding attributes to links based on predefined rules (automatic decorators)

Automatic link decorators match all links in the editor content against a function which decides whether the link should receive some set of attributes, considering the URL (href) of the link. These decorators work silently and the editor applies them during the data downcast.

For instance, to create an automatic decorator that adds the download="file.pdf" attribute to all links ending with the ".pdf" extension, you should add the following definition to config.link.decorators:

ClassicEditor
    .create( document.querySelector( '#editor' ), {
        // ... Other configuration options ...
        link: {
            decorators: {
                detectDownloadable: {
                    mode: 'automatic',
                    callback: url => url.endsWith( '.pdf' ),
                    attributes: {
                        download: 'file.pdf'
                    }
                }
            }
        }
        // More of the editor's configuration.
        // ...
    } )
    .then( /* ... */ )
    .catch( /* ... */ );

# Adding attributes to links using the UI (manual decorators)

Manual link decorators are represented in the link editing balloon as switch buttons. The users can use them to control the presence of attributes of a particular link (check out the demo to learn more). Each manual decorator definition has a human-readable label displayed next to the switch button in the link editing balloon. Make sure it is compact and precise for the convenience of the users.

To configure a “Downloadable” switch button in the link editing balloon that adds the download="file" attribute to the link when turned on, add the following definition to config.link.decorators:

ClassicEditor
    .create( document.querySelector( '#editor' ), {
        // ... Other configuration options ...
        link: {
            decorators: {
                toggleDownloadable: {
                    mode: 'manual',
                    label: 'Downloadable',
                    attributes: {
                        download: 'file'
                    }
                },
                openInNewTab: {
                    mode: 'manual',
                    label: 'Open in a new tab',
                    defaultValue: true,			// This option will be selected by default.
                    attributes: {
                        target: '_blank',
                        rel: 'noopener noreferrer'
                    }
                }
            }
        }
    } )
    .then( /* ... */ )
    .catch( /* ... */ );

# Autolink feature

The AutoLink feature will automatically turn URLs or email addresses into working links.

To use the autolink function, press Space, Enter, or Shift+Enter after a link.

# Common API

The Link plugin registers the UI button component ('link') and the following commands:

• The 'link' command implemented by LinkCommand.
• The 'unlink' command implemented by UnlinkCommand.

You can execute the commands using the editor.execute() method:

// Applies the link to the selected content.
// When the selection is collapsed, it creates new text wrapped in a link.
editor.execute( 'link', 'http://example.com' );

// If there are decorators configured, the command can set their state.
editor.execute( 'link', 'http://example.com', { linkIsExternal: true } );

// Removes the link from the selection (and all decorators if present).
editor.execute( 'unlink' );

The package provides a plugin for linking images. See the Linking images guide in the Images section.

Links are represented in the model using the linkHref attribute. Manual link decorators are represented in the model using text attributes corresponding to their names, as configured in config.link.decorators.

# Contribute

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