Accessible navigation guide

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 Windows or Linux macOS

Focus/jump to menu bar

Alt+F9

⌥+F9

Focus/jump to toolbar

Alt+F10

⌥+F10

Focus/jump to element path

Alt+F11

⌥+F11

Focus/jump to notification

Alt+F12

⌥+F12

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

Open the TinyMCE Help dialog

Alt+0

⌥+0

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.

To focus on the editor menu bar, press Alt+F9 (or ⌥+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.

General toolbar navigation

To focus on the editor toolbars, press Alt+F10 (or ⌥+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.

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.

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.

To focus on the editor notifications, press Alt+F12 (or ⌥+F12); which moves the keyboard focus to the first notification. To move the focus between notifications and other focusable elements (e.g. links or buttons) within a notification, use the Tab key. Use Shift+Tab key to navigate backward. When you reach the end of the elements within a notification using Tab key, it will either cycle to the next notification in the list or cycle back to the first one if you’re already on the last. To close the currently focused notification, press the Esc key.

Accessibility options

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