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NOTE: TinyMCE 5 reached End of Support in April 2023. No more bug fixes, security updates, or new features will be introduced to TinyMCE 5. We recommend you upgrade to TinyMCE 6 or consider TinyMCE 5 Long Term Support (LTS) if you need more time.

Accessibility

Learn how TinyMCE works with screen readers and how screen readers work with TinyMCE.

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TinyMCE is compatible with screen readers such as JAWS and NVDA as it follows the WAI-ARIA specification. Use NVDA together with Firefox for the best Accessibility experience.

Keyboard shortcuts

The following Alt+key and Option+key shortcuts can only be used when the content area of the editor has focus.

Task PC (Non-macOS users) macOS
Focus/jump to menu bar Alt+F9 Option+F9
Focus/jump to toolbar Alt+F10 Option+F10
Focus/jump to element path Alt+F11 Option+F11
Close menu/submenu/dialog Esc Esc
Return to the editor content area Esc Esc
Navigate left/right through menu/toolbar Tab and the Arrow Keys Tab and the Arrow Keys

For additional navigation keyboard shortcuts and shortcuts for applying some commonly-used formats, see: Keyboard shortcuts.

How to work with the editor

When navigating to a TinyMCE editor, the keyboard focus (caret) will be in the content area. The up and down arrow keys navigate between the lines of the editor, such as within and between paragraphs, headings and other items such as links.

Navigating the menu bar

To focus on the editor menu bar, press Alt+F9. The Left Arrow and Right Arrow keys navigate through the top menu items. The Enter, Return, Spacebar, or Down Arrow keys open the highlighted menu and moves focus to the first menu item. To activate or select the highlighted menu item, use the Enter, Return, or Spacebar keys. Press the Esc key to collapse the menu. The Right Arrow key opens submenus and the Esc key collapses submenus. To return focus to the content area from the menu bar, use the Esc key.

Navigating the toolbar

General toolbar navigation

To focus on the editor toolbars, press Alt+F10; which moves the keyboard focus to the first toolbar button on the first toolbar. To move between toolbar buttons within toolbar groups (visual groups of toolbar buttons), use the Left Arrow and Right Arrow keys. To move the focus between toolbar groups, use the Tab or Shift+Tab keys. When you reach the end of a toolbar group the Right Arrow key will return the focus to the start of the toolbar group. To activate or select the highlighted toolbar button, use the Enter, Return, or Spacebar keys. To return focus to the content area from the toolbar, use the Esc key.

Navigating toolbar buttons that contain menus or grids

To open submenus or grid selections on toolbar buttons, use the Enter, Return, Spacebar, or Down Arrow keys. To close submenus or grids, use the Esc key. Some toolbar buttons with menus will present a grid of options rather than a menu, such as the background color selector. These grids can be navigated with the arrow keys and closed using the Esc key.

Navigating dialogs

Dialogs such as Insert/Edit Image are opened from either a menu item or a toolbar button. Some dialogs contain multiple tabs or pages of options. To change tabs or pages, use the arrow keys; the highlighted tab will become active immediately. Use the Tab key to navigate between the dialog options on the selected dialog tab. The Save dialog button stores the changes, and the Cancel dialog button or the Esc key discards changes.

Accessibility options

TinyMCE has accessibility options that can be set when initializing the editor, see: Accessibility options.

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Except as otherwise noted, the content of this page is licensed under the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 3.0 License, and code samples are licensed under the Apache 2.0 License.