How can I prevent the richtext field to insert unwanted html?

Question

When editing Sitecore rich text fields, upon saving, it inserts <p> tags that are unnecessary for example around images or for line breaks. Also it adds classes to span tags which is not a preferred behavior.

How can I resolve this?

Answer 1

You can write a custom save event that cleans up the resulting HTML. You can find sample code below.

Adjust to your own needs. Don't forget the mentioned configuration patch to activate the code.

patch.config:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<configuration>
 <sitecore>  
   <events>
    <event name="item:saving">
      <handler type="YourNameSpace.Sitecore.Events.RichTextEditorSaveEvent, YourNameSpace.Sitecore" method="OnItemSaving">
        <database>master</database>
      </handler>
    </event>
  </events>
 </sitecore>
</configuration>

C# code:

using Sitecore.Data.Items;
using Sitecore.Events;
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
using Sitecore.Collections;
using Sitecore.SecurityModel;
using Sitecore.Data.Fields;
using System.Collections;
using System.Xml;
using Sitecore.Data;
using HtmlAgilityPack;

namespace YourNameSpace.Sitecore.Events
{
    /// <summary>
    /// This on save event fires for all items, but only for rich text fields it executes logic. In this case it cleans up the rich text field's html.
    /// </summary>
    public class RichTextEditorSaveEvent
    {
        private static readonly SynchronizedCollection<ID> MProcess = new SynchronizedCollection<ID>();

        public string Database
        {
            get;
            set;
        } 

        public void OnItemSaving(object sender, EventArgs args)
        {

            var item = Event.ExtractParameter(args, 0) as Item;
            if (item == null)
            {
                return;
            }
            if ((item.Database != null && String.Compare(item.Database.Name, this.Database) != 0) || MProcess.Contains(item.ID))
            {
                return;
            }

            MProcess.Add(item.ID);
            try
            {
                foreach (Field field in item.Fields)
                {
                    if (!field.TypeKey.Equals("rich text", StringComparison.InvariantCultureIgnoreCase))
                    {
                        continue;
                    }

                    var content = field.Value;

                    if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(content))
                    {
                        content = content.Trim();

                        try
                        {
                            HtmlDocument htmlDocument = new HtmlDocument();
                            htmlDocument.LoadHtml(content);
                            RemoveEmptyPTags(htmlDocument);
                            RemovePTagAroundImages(htmlDocument);
                            MoveSpanClassAndStyleToPTagIfIsDirectAndOnlyChild(htmlDocument);
                            content = htmlDocument.DocumentNode.InnerHtml;

                        }
                        catch (Exception)
                        {
                            //Apparently no html or not valid, in this case wrap in <p>
                            if (!content.Contains("<p>"))
                            {
                                content = "<p>" + content + "</p>";
                            }
                        }

                        //if doing item:saving event
                        field.Value = content

                        //if doing item:saved event
                        //using (new SecurityDisabler())
                        //{
                        //    item.Editing.BeginEdit();
                        //    field.Value = content;
                        //    item.Editing.EndEdit();
                        //}
                    }
                }
            }
            catch (Exception)
            {
            }
            finally
            {
                MProcess.Remove(item.ID);
            }
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Moves span attributes to parent <p></p> tag moves span contents to parent as well, then removes span. This to get cleaner HTML.
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="content"></param>
        private void MoveSpanClassAndStyleToPTagIfIsDirectAndOnlyChild(HtmlDocument content)
        {
            HtmlNodeCollection spanNodes = content.DocumentNode.SelectNodes("//span");
            if (spanNodes != null && spanNodes.Count > 0)
            {
                foreach (HtmlNode spanTag in spanNodes)
                {
                    if (spanTag.ParentNode != null && spanTag.ParentNode.Name == "p" && spanTag.ParentNode.ChildNodes.Count == 1)
                    {
                        string spanContents = spanTag.InnerHtml;
                        foreach (HtmlAttribute attr in spanTag.Attributes)
                        {
                            if (spanTag.ParentNode.Attributes != null && spanTag.ParentNode.Attributes[attr.Name] != null)
                            {
                                spanTag.ParentNode.Attributes[attr.Name].Value += !string.IsNullOrEmpty(spanTag.ParentNode.Attributes[attr.Name].Value) ? " " + attr.Value : attr.Value;
                            }
                            else
                            {
                                 spanTag.ParentNode.Attributes.Add(attr.Name, attr.Value);
                            }
                        }

                        HtmlNode parent = spanTag.ParentNode;
                        parent.RemoveChild(spanTag);
                        parent.InnerHtml += spanContents;
                    }
                }
            }
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Images can get empty <p></p> tags around them when content editor inputs a linebreak after inserting the image. This is undesirable. This method removes such tags and sets image on parent
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="content"></param>
        private void RemovePTagAroundImages(HtmlDocument content)
        {
            HtmlNodeCollection imgNodes = content.DocumentNode.SelectNodes("//img");
            if (imgNodes != null && imgNodes.Count > 0)
            {
                foreach (HtmlNode imgTag in imgNodes)
                {
                    if (imgTag.ParentNode.Name == "p")
                    {
                        string xmlToPreserve = imgTag.ParentNode.InnerHtml;
                        HtmlNode grantParent = imgTag.ParentNode.ParentNode;
                        grantParent.RemoveChild(imgTag.ParentNode);
                        grantParent.InnerHtml += xmlToPreserve;
                    }
                }
            }
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Cleans html with empty <p></p> tags. Content editor should use <br/> line breaks instead, or spacing should be realized with CSS.
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="content"></param>
        private void RemoveEmptyPTags(HtmlDocument content)
        {
            HtmlNodeCollection pNodes = content.DocumentNode.SelectNodes("//p");
            if (pNodes != null && pNodes.Count > 0)
            {
                foreach (HtmlNode pTag in pNodes)
                {
                    if (string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(pTag.InnerHtml) || pTag.InnerHtml == "&nbsp;" || pTag.InnerHtml == "\n" || pTag.InnerHtml == "\n\n")
                    {
                        pTag.ParentNode.RemoveChild(pTag);
                    }
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

Answer 2

Solution 1:

When you copy paste the text in richtext editor, it copies enties thing with tags associated. You can copy the text and paste it in HTML mode.

and then switch to design mode and from the dropdown menu you can select the normal that will enclose the text in paragraph tag.

Solution 2:

Before pasting the text in rich text editor, you can copy in noptepad and copy it again from notepad, and then you paste it to richtext editor in sitecore. It will not copy the unnecessary tags.