or some reason whenever I install the CKEditor module for Drupal I have a problem with it.  It is not a major problem, but it is just a pain.  Any other module that I install, it is simple.  But for some reason with CKEditor, I always manage to mess something up.

First, I’m glad they changed the name.  Because it used to be FCKeditor, but that was one letter away from, well you know.  But it is still a two part install to configure the module in Drupal.  First,you go to Drupal.org and get the CKeditor download from there.  Second, you go to the CKEditor website and download the latest version there.

So, I know what you are thinking–that is only two steps.  What is so difficult about that?  Well, it is just where you put the second part, the CKEditor files from the CKEditor website.  The documentation is not very clear.  It says the following:

Unzip the contents of the ckeditor directory in the sites/all/modules/ckeditor/ckeditor directory.

I don’t know why that sentence is so complicated, but it just always is for some reason.  I think what I normally do is unzip the download into the 2nd ckeditor directory.  But now, there should be 3 ckeditor folders.  So the folder would be located on your web server at this location:

www/sites/all/modules/ckeditor/ckeditor/ckeditor

So all the downloaded files (which are in a zip file) go into that 3rd ckeditor folder.  So don’t forget that or else you will make the stupid mistake that I always make.

To anyone just starting to use Drupal.  One of the first modules you must get is CKeditor.  It was previously titled FCKeditor, which thankfully they changed, because it’s title often looked a lot like a certain 4 letter swear word.

CKeditor is WYSIWYG text editor that will automatically convert your text to HTML. It has many buttons and commands that are similar to Microsoft Word or any other word processor. It lets you do some basic formatting with your text and is simple to use.

Of course, if you need to edit the HTML code, you can quickly switch to the HTML source and update it that way as well.  But, obviously, it will save you a great amount of time with basic formatting of text.

So definitely add this to your Drupal installation as one of your first add on modules.  To download the module and find more information, refer here to the drupal.org site