Rich Text Processing

The Scribe framework provides a set of classes for reading and manipulating structured rich text documents. Unlike previous rich text support in Qt, the new classes are centered around the QTextDocument class rather than raw textual information. This enables the developer to create and modify structured rich text documents without having to prepare content in an intermediate markup format.

The information within a document can be accessed via two complementary interfaces: A cursor-based interface is used for editing, and a read-only hierarchical interface provides a high level overview of the document structure. The main advantage of the cursor-based interface is that the text can be edited using operations that mimic a user's interaction with an editor, without losing the underlying structure of the document. The read-only hierarchical interface is most useful when performing operations such as searching and document export.

This document is divided up into chapters for convenient reference:

Rich Text Processing APIs

Qt provides an extensive collection of classes for parsing, rendering manipulating and editing rich text.

QAbstractTextDocumentLayout

Abstract base class used to implement custom layouts for QTextDocuments

QFont

Specifies a font used for drawing text

QSyntaxHighlighter

Allows you to define syntax highlighting rules, and in addition you can use the class to query a document's current formatting or user data

QTextCursor

Offers an API to access and modify QTextDocuments

QTextDocument

Holds formatted text

QTextDocumentFragment

Represents a piece of formatted text from a QTextDocument

QTextDocumentWriter

Format-independent interface for writing a QTextDocument to files or other devices

QTextBlockFormat

Formatting information for blocks of text in a QTextDocument

QTextCharFormat

Formatting information for characters in a QTextDocument

QTextFormat

Formatting information for a QTextDocument

QTextFrameFormat

Formatting information for frames in a QTextDocument

QTextImageFormat

Formatting information for images in a QTextDocument

QTextLength

Encapsulates the different types of length used in a QTextDocument

QTextListFormat

Formatting information for lists in a QTextDocument

QTextTableCellFormat

Formatting information for table cells in a QTextDocument

QTextTableFormat

Formatting information for tables in a QTextDocument

QTextInlineObject

Represents an inline object in a QAbstractTextDocumentLayout and its implementations

QTextLayout

Used to lay out and render text

QTextLine

Represents a line of text inside a QTextLayout

QTextList

Decorated list of items in a QTextDocument

QTextBlock

Container for text fragments in a QTextDocument

QTextBlockGroup

Container for text blocks within a QTextDocument

QTextBlockUserData

Used to associate custom data with blocks of text

QTextFragment

Holds a piece of text in a QTextDocument with a single QTextCharFormat

QTextFrame

Represents a frame in a QTextDocument

QTextObject

Base class for different kinds of objects that can group parts of a QTextDocument together

QTextFrame::iterator

Iterator for reading the contents of a QTextFrame

QTextBlock::iterator

QTextBlock::iterator class provides an iterator for reading the contents of a QTextBlock

QTextOption

Description of general rich text properties

QTextTable

Represents a table in a QTextDocument

QTextTableCell

Represents the properties of a cell in a QTextTable

QPlainTextDocumentLayout

Implements a plain text layout for QTextDocument

QPlainTextEdit

Widget that is used to edit and display plain text

QTextBrowser

Rich text browser with hypertext navigation

QTextEdit

Widget that is used to edit and display both plain and rich text