Getting Started with ASP.NET MVC Markdown Editor Control

18 Mar 20254 minutes to read

This section briefly explains about how to include ASP.NET MVC Rich Text Editor control in your ASP.NET MVC application using Visual Studio.

Prerequisites

System requirements for ASP.NET MVC controls

Create ASP.NET MVC application with HTML helper

Install ASP.NET MVC package in the application

To add ASP.NET MVC controls in the application, open the NuGet package manager in Visual Studio (Tools → NuGet Package Manager → Manage NuGet Packages for Solution), search for Syncfusion.EJ2.MVC5 and then install it.

Package Manager
Install-Package Syncfusion.EJ2.MVC5 -Version 29.1.33

Syncfusion^® ASP.NET MVC controls are available in nuget.org. Refer to NuGet packages topic to learn more about installing NuGet packages in various OS environments. The Syncfusion.EJ2.MVC5 NuGet package has dependencies, Newtonsoft.Json for JSON serialization and Syncfusion.Licensing for validating Syncfusion^® license key.

Add namespace

Add Syncfusion.EJ2 namespace reference in Web.config under Views folder.

<namespaces>
    <add namespace="Syncfusion.EJ2"/>
</namespaces>

Add stylesheet and script resources

Here, the theme and script is referred using CDN inside the <head> of ~/Views/Shared/_Layout.cshtml file as follows,

~/_Layout.cshtml
<head>
    ...
    <!-- Syncfusion ASP.NET MVC controls styles -->
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="https://cdn.syncfusion.com/ej2/29.1.33/fluent.css" />
    <!-- Syncfusion ASP.NET MVC controls scripts -->
    <script src="https://cdn.syncfusion.com/ej2/29.1.33/dist/ej2.min.js"></script>
</head>

Checkout the Themes topic to learn different ways (CDN, NPM package, and CRG) to refer styles in ASP.NET MVC application, and to have the expected appearance for Syncfusion^® ASP.NET MVC controls. Checkout the Adding Script Reference topic to learn different approaches for adding script references in your ASP.NET MVC application.

Register Syncfusion^® script manager

Also, register the script manager EJS().ScriptManager() at the end of <body> in the ~/Views/Shared/_Layout.cshtml file as follows.

~/_Layout.cshtml
<body>
...
    <!-- Syncfusion ASP.NET MVC Script Manager -->
    @Html.EJS().ScriptManager()
</body>

Add ASP.NET MVC Markdown Editor control

Now, add the Syncfusion^® ASP.NET MVC Markdown Editor control in ~/Views/Home/Index.cshtml page.

CSHTML
@Html.EJS().RichTextEditor("editor").Value(ViewBag.value).Render()

Press Ctrl+F5 (Windows) or ⌘+F5 (macOS) to run the app. Then, the Syncfusion^® ASP.NET MVC Markdown Editor control will be rendered in the default web browser.

Configure the toolbar with the tools using Items field of the ToolbarSettings property as your application requires.

CSHTML
Controller.cs
@Html.EJS().RichTextEditor("editor").EditorMode(EditorMode.Markdown).ToolbarSettings(e => e.Items((object)ViewBag.tools)).Value(ViewBag.value).Render()
public class HomeController : Controller
{
    public ActionResult Index()
    {
        ViewBag.value = @"In Rich Text Editor, you click the toolbar buttons to format the words and the changes are visible immediately. Markdown is not like that. When you format the word in Markdown format, you need to add Markdown syntax to the word to indicate which words and phrases should look different from each other. Rich Text Editor supports markdown editing when the editorMode set as **markdown** and using both *keyboard interaction* and *toolbar action*, you can apply the formatting to text. You can add our own custom formation syntax for the Markdown formation, [sample link](https://ej2.syncfusion.com/home/). The third-party library <b>Marked</b> is used in this sample to convert markdown into HTML content.";
        
        ViewBag.tools = new[] {
            "Bold", "Italic", "StrikeThrough", "InlineCode", "SuperScript",
            "SubScript", "|", "Formats", "Blockquote", "|", "OrderedList", "UnorderedList",
            "CreateLink", "Image", "CreateTable", "|", "Undo", "Redo"
        };   
        
        return View();
    }
}

ASP.NET MVC Markdown Editor with Toolbar

| and - can insert a vertical and horizontal separator lines in the toolbar.

View Sample in GitHub.