Qt Reference Documentation

Supported HTML Subset

Qt's text widgets are able to display rich text, specified using a subset of HTML 4 markup. Widgets that use QTextDocument, such as QLabel and QTextEdit, are able to display rich text specified in this way.

Using HTML Markup in Text Widgets

Widgets automatically detect HTML markup and display rich text accordingly. For example, setting a label's text property with the string "<b>Hello</b> <i>Qt!</i>" will result in the label displaying text like this: Hello Qt!

When HTML markup is used for text, Qt follows the rules defined by the HTML 4 specification. This includes default properties for text layout, such as the direction of the text flow (left-to-right) which can be changed by applying the dir attribute to blocks of text.

Supported Tags

The following table lists the HTML tags supported by Qt's rich text engine:

TagDescriptionComment

a

Anchor or link

Supports the href and name attributes.

address

Address

b

Bold

big

Larger font

blockquote

Indented paragraph

body

Document body

Supports the bgcolor attribute, which can be a Qt color name or a #RRGGBB color specification.

br

Line break

center

Centered paragraph

cite

Inline citation

Same as i.

code

Code

Same as tt.

dd

Definition data

dfn

Definition

Same as i.

div

Document division

Supports the standard block attributes.

dl

Definition list

Supports the standard block attributes.

dt

Definition term

Supports the standard block attributes.

em

Emphasized

Same as i.

font

Font size, family, and/or color

Supports the following attributes: size, face, and color (Qt color names or #RRGGBB).

h1

Level 1 heading

Supports the standard block attributes.

h2

Level 2 heading

Supports the standard block attributes.

h3

Level 3 heading

Supports the standard block attributes.

h4

Level 4 heading

Supports the standard block attributes.

h5

Level 5 heading

Supports the standard block attributes.

h6

Level 6 heading

Supports the standard block attributes.

head

Document header

hr

Horizontal line

Supports the width attribute, which can be specified as an absolute or relative (%) value.

html

HTML document

i

Italic

img

Image

Supports the src, source (for Qt 3 compatibility), width, and height attributes.

kbd

User-entered text

meta

Meta-information

If a text encoding is specified using the meta tag, it is picked up by Qt::codecForHtml(). Likewise, if an encoding is specified to QTextDocument::toHtml(), the encoding is stored using a meta tag, for example:

 <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=EUC-JP" />

li

List item

nobr

Non-breakable text

ol

Ordered list

Supports the standard list attributes.

p

Paragraph

Left-aligned by default. Supports the standard block attributes.

pre

Preformated text

qt

Qt rich-text document

Synonym for html. Provided for compatibility with earlier versions of Qt.

s

Strikethrough

samp

Sample code

Same as tt.

small

Small font

span

Grouped elements

strong

Strong

Same as b.

sub

Subscript

sup

Superscript

table

Table

Supports the following attributes: border, bgcolor (Qt color names or #RRGGBB), cellspacing, cellpadding, width (absolute or relative), and height.

tbody

Table body

Does nothing.

td

Table data cell

Supports the standard table cell attributes.

tfoot

Table footer

Does nothing.

th

Table header cell

Supports the standard table cell attributes.

thead

Table header

If the thead tag is specified, it is used when printing tables that span multiple pages.

title

Document title

The value specified using the title tag is available through QTextDocument::metaInformation().

tr

Table row

Supports the bgcolor attribute, which can be a Qt color name or a #RRGGBB color specification.

tt

Typewrite font

u

Underlined

ul

Unordered list

Supports the standard list attributes.

var

Variable

Same as i.

Block Attributes

The following attributes are supported by the div, dl, dt, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, p tags:

  • align (left, right, center, justify)
  • dir (ltr, rtl)

List Attributes

The following attribute is supported by the ol and ul tags:

  • type (1, a, A, square, disc, circle)

Table Cell Attributes

The following attributes are supported by the td and th tags:

  • width (absolute, relative, or no-value)
  • bgcolor (Qt color names or #RRGGBB)
  • colspan
  • rowspan
  • align (left, right, center, justify)
  • valign (top, middle, bottom)

CSS Properties

The following table lists the CSS properties supported by Qt's rich text engine:

PropertyValuesDescription

background-color

<color>

Background color for elements

background-image

<uri>

Background image for elements

color

<color>

Text foreground color

font-family

<family name>

Font family name

font-size

[ small | medium | large | x-large | xx-large ] | <size>pt | <size>px

Font size relative to the document font, or specified in points or pixels

font-style

[ normal | italic | oblique ]

font-weight

[ normal | bold | 100 | 200 | 300 | 400 | 500 | 600 | 700 | 800 | 900 ]

Specifies the font weight used for text, where normal and bold are mapped to the corresponding QFont weights. Numeric values are 8 times the equivalent QFont weight values.

text-decoration

none | [ underline || overline || line-through ]

Additional text effects

font

[ [ <'font-style'> || <'font-weight'> ]? <'font-size'> <'font-family'> ]

Font shorthand property

text-indent

<length>px

First line text indentation in pixels

white-space

normal | pre | nowrap | pre-wrap

Declares how whitespace in HTML is handled.

margin-top

<length>px

Top paragraph margin in pixels

margin-bottom

<length>px

Bottom paragraph margin in pixels

margin-left

<length>px

Left paragraph margin in pixels

margin-right

<length>px

Right paragraph margin in pixels

padding-top

<length>px

Top table cell padding in pixels

padding-bottom

<length>px

Bottom table cell padding in pixels

padding-left

<length>px

Left table cell padding in pixels

padding-right

<length>px

Right table cell padding in pixels

padding

<length>px

Shorthand for setting all the padding properties at once.

vertical-align

baseline | sub | super | middle | top | bottom

Vertical text alignment. For vertical alignment in text table cells only middle, top, and bottom apply.

border-color

<color>

Border color for text tables.

border-style

none | dotted | dashed | dot-dash | dot-dot-dash | solid | double | groove | ridge | inset | outset

Border style for text tables.

background

[ <'background-color'> || <'background-image'> ]

Background shorthand property

page-break-before

[ auto | always ]

Make it possible to enforce a page break before the paragraph/table

page-break-after

[ auto | always ]

Make it possible to enforce a page break after the paragraph/table

float

[ left | right | none ]

Specifies where an image or a text will be placed in another element. Note that the float property is only supported for tables and images.

text-transform

[ uppercase | lowercase ]

Select the transformation that will be performed on the text prior to displaying it.

font-variant

small-caps

Perform the smallcaps transformation on the text prior to displaying it.

word-spacing

<width>px

Specifies an alternate spacing between each word.

Supported CSS Selectors

All CSS 2.1 selector classes are supported except pseudo-class selectors such as :first-child, :visited and :hover.

[Previous: Common Rich Text Editing Tasks]

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