docs-desktop/dotnet-desktop-guide/framework/wpf/controls/richtextbox-overview.md

title, description, ms.date, dev_langs, helpviewer_keywords, ms.assetid

title	description	ms.date	dev_langs	helpviewer_keywords	ms.assetid
RichTextBox Overview	Learn how the Windows Presentation Foundation RichTextBox control lets users display or edit content like text, images, and tables. See XAML and C# examples.	03/30/2017	csharp vb	controls [WPF], RichTextBox RichTextBox control [WPF], about RichTextBox control	c94548b2-c1e9-4b62-b10c-dd8740eb23d8

RichTextBox Overview

The xref:System.Windows.Controls.RichTextBox control enables you to display or edit flow content including paragraphs, images, tables, and more. This topic introduces the xref:System.Windows.Controls.TextBox class and provides examples of how to use it in both Extensible Application Markup Language (XAML) and C#.

TextBox or RichTextBox?

Both xref:System.Windows.Controls.RichTextBox and xref:System.Windows.Controls.TextBox allow users to edit text, however, the two controls are used in different scenarios. A xref:System.Windows.Controls.RichTextBox is a better choice when it is necessary for the user to edit formatted text, images, tables, or other rich content. For example, editing a document, article, or blog that requires formatting, images, etc is best accomplished using a xref:System.Windows.Controls.RichTextBox. A xref:System.Windows.Controls.TextBox requires less system resources than a xref:System.Windows.Controls.RichTextBox and it is ideal when only plain text needs to be edited (i.e. usage in forms). See TextBox Overview for more information on xref:System.Windows.Controls.TextBox. The table below summarizes the main features of xref:System.Windows.Controls.TextBox and xref:System.Windows.Controls.RichTextBox.

Control	Real-time Spellchecking	Context Menu	Formatting commands like xref:System.Windows.Documents.EditingCommands.ToggleBold%2A (Ctr+B)	xref:System.Windows.Documents.FlowDocument content like images, paragraphs, tables, etc.
xref:System.Windows.Controls.TextBox	Yes	Yes	No	No.
xref:System.Windows.Controls.RichTextBox	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes

Note

Although xref:System.Windows.Controls.TextBox does not support formatting related commands like xref:System.Windows.Documents.EditingCommands.ToggleBold%2A (Ctr+B), many basic commands are supported by both controls such as xref:System.Windows.Documents.EditingCommands.MoveToLineEnd%2A.

The features from the table above are covered in more detail later.

Creating a RichTextBox

The code below shows how to create a xref:System.Windows.Controls.RichTextBox that a user can edit rich content in.

[!code-xamlRichTextBoxMiscSnippets_snip#BasicRichTextBoxExampleWholePage]

Specifically, the content edited in a xref:System.Windows.Controls.RichTextBox is flow content. Flow content can contain many types of elements including formatted text, images, lists, and tables. See Flow Document Overview for in depth information on flow documents. In order to contain flow content, a xref:System.Windows.Controls.RichTextBox hosts a xref:System.Windows.Documents.FlowDocument object which in turn contains the editable content. To demonstrate flow content in a xref:System.Windows.Controls.RichTextBox, the following code shows how to create a xref:System.Windows.Controls.RichTextBox with a paragraph and some bolded text.

[!code-xamlRichTextBoxMiscSnippets_snip#RichTextBoxWithContentExampleWholePage]

[!code-csharpRichTextBoxMiscSnippets_procedural_snip#BasicRichTextBoxWithContentCodeOnlyExample] [!code-vbRichTextBoxMiscSnippets_procedural_snip#BasicRichTextBoxWithContentCodeOnlyExample]

The following illustration shows how this sample renders.

Elements like xref:System.Windows.Documents.Paragraph and xref:System.Windows.Documents.Bold determine how the content inside a xref:System.Windows.Controls.RichTextBox appears. As a user edits xref:System.Windows.Controls.RichTextBox content, they change this flow content. To learn more about the features of flow content and how to work with it, see Flow Document Overview.

Note

Flow content inside a xref:System.Windows.Controls.RichTextBox does not behave exactly like flow content contained in other controls. For example, there are no columns in a xref:System.Windows.Controls.RichTextBox and hence no automatic resizing behavior. Also, built in features like search, viewing mode, page navigation, and zoom are not available within a xref:System.Windows.Controls.RichTextBox.

Real-time Spell Checking

You can enable real-time spell checking in a xref:System.Windows.Controls.TextBox or xref:System.Windows.Controls.RichTextBox. When spellchecking is turned on, a red line appears underneath any misspelled words (see picture below).

See Enable Spell Checking in a Text Editing Control to learn how to enable spellchecking.

Context Menu

By default, both xref:System.Windows.Controls.TextBox and xref:System.Windows.Controls.RichTextBox have a context menu that appears when a user right-clicks inside the control. The context menu allows the user to cut, copy, or paste (see illustration below).

You can create your own custom context menu to override the default one. See Position a Custom Context Menu in a RichTextBox for more information.

Editing Commands

Editing commands enable users to format editable content inside a xref:System.Windows.Controls.RichTextBox. Besides basic editing commands, xref:System.Windows.Controls.RichTextBox includes formatting commands that xref:System.Windows.Controls.TextBox does not support. For example, when editing in a xref:System.Windows.Controls.RichTextBox, a user could press Ctr+B to toggle bold text formatting. See xref:System.Windows.Documents.EditingCommands for a complete list of commands available. In addition to using keyboard shortcuts, you can hook commands up to other controls like buttons. The following example shows how to create a simple tool bar containing buttons that the user can use to change text formatting.

[!code-xamlRichTextBox_InputPanel_snip#RichTextBoxWithToolBarExampleWholePage]

The following illustration shows how this sample displays.

Detect when Content Changes

Usually the xref:System.Windows.Controls.Primitives.TextBoxBase.TextChanged event should be used to detect whenever the text in a xref:System.Windows.Controls.TextBox or xref:System.Windows.Controls.RichTextBox changes rather then xref:System.Windows.UIElement.KeyDown as you might expect. See Detect When Text in a TextBox Has Changed for an example.

Save, Load, and Print RichTextBox Content

The following example shows how to save content of a xref:System.Windows.Controls.RichTextBox to a file, load that content back into the xref:System.Windows.Controls.RichTextBox, and print the contents. Below is the markup for the example.

[!code-xamlRichTextBoxMiscSnippets_snip#SaveLoadPrintRTBExampleWholePage]

Below is the code behind for the example.

[!code-csharpRichTextBoxMiscSnippets_snip#SaveLoadPrintRTBCodeExampleWholePage] [!code-vbRichTextBoxMiscSnippets_snip#SaveLoadPrintRTBCodeExampleWholePage]

See also

• How-to Topics
• TextBox Overview