Add arbitrary HTML to an article

If you try to add arbitrary html to an article you are liable to run up against the fact that both Joomla and the TinyMCE Editor that we use filter out some html tags. For the most part, this is desirable behaviour but occasionally you may want to enter arbitrary html. Here's how to disable the filtering:

• First, you need to be logged in as a super-administrator. The admin account that was in your system when it was delivered is a super-administrator. I will assume that you are editing using this account.
• Next you need to turn off the use of TinyMCE for the admin account. Go to Joomla->Users->User Manger, click on the admin user, and, in the Basic Settings block, set the 'User Editor' to 'Editor - no editor'. Now when you go to edit an article you will only see the raw html, not a WYSIWYG representation of it.
• Finally, there is a setting that allows you to turn off the html filtering by Joomla itself. I have set that to off for super-administators in all of the template sites, but I want to document it here so you will be aware of the setting. Go to Joomla->Content->Article Manager. Click on the 'Options' icon. Click on the "Text Filters" tab. Here you can set filtering options for the various user groups. I recommend "Black List" for all except Super Users and "No Filtering" for Super Users.

Return to the Basic Management How-To's page