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Rich Text

  • Feb 09, 2026
  • 4 minutes to read

Overview

The Rich Text control displays formatted text (static, dynamic or mixed) in a report.

To add this control to a report, drag the Rich Text item from the Toolbox onto the report’s Design Surface.

You can also drop an RTF, DOCX, or HTML file to a band to insert a Rich Text control with associated file content.

Load Content from a File

You can load RTF or HTML content from an external file. Expand the Data category and click the Load file property’s ellipsis button.

In the invoked Open dialog, select the file and click Open.

Rich Text supports the following file formats:

  • RTF
  • DOCX
  • TXT
  • HTML

Edit Content in Place

Double-click a Rich Text control and type text in the invoked in-place editor. A ribbon with text format options appears next to the editor.

Rich Text supports the following edit operations:

  • Undo/Redo History

  • Clipboard Operations

  • Hyperlinks

  • Drag and Drop

Note

The legacy Rich Text does not provide a ribbon with text format options. Its in-place editor allows you to enter only plain text. Bind the control to a data field that provides RTF or HTML content to display formatted text.

Bind to Data

Click the Rtf Expression or Html Expression option’s ellipsis button to invoke the Expression Editor. Use this editor to bind the control to a data field or construct a complex binding expression with two or more data fields.

You can use HTML formatted text that contains markup tags to define text appearance. Click the Html Expression option’s ellipsis button and enter this text in quotes in the invoked Expression Editor.

Drag and drop a numeric or text field from the Field List onto the Rich Text control to bind it to this field.

The Rich Text also enables you to merge data fields and static content in its text.

See the Bind Controls to Data and Use Embedded Fields topics for more information.

Markup Text

Supported Tags

The table below lists the supported HTML tags. External links are processed for inline pictures and style sheets (CSS files). The ID and Class attributes are interpreted for all tags, including the unlisted ones. These attributes are used to specify a style for content within a certain tag

TagAttributesNotes
adir
bdir
base
basefontsize
color
face
dir
bigdir
blockquotedir
brdir
centerdir
codedir
delcite
datetime
divpage-break-before
page-break-after
page-break-inside
background-color
border (CSS)
dirOnly the always property value is supported for the page-break-before tag.
emdir
fontsize
color
face
dir
h1-h6align
dir
head
html
hralign
color
noshade
size
width
idir
inscite
datetime
imgalign
src
height
widthIf the align attribute is not specified, the image is considered as inline.
litype
value
dir
linkhref
type
media
dir
meta
oltype
value
align
dir
palign
dir
scriptText inside this tag is ignored.
small
span
strikedir
strongdir
style
subdir
supdir
tablealign
bgcolor
border
bordercolor
cellpadding
cellspacing
dir
widthThe dir attribute reorders table columns.
tdalign
bgcolor
bordercolor
colspan
height
nowrap
rowspan
text-align
valign
widthThe align tag is supported in the Internet Explorer only.
The Rich Text control’s interpretation of the bordercolor attribute is different from the HTML browser.
thany allowed
tralign
bgcolor
bordercolor
height
text-align
valignThe align attribute is supported in the Internet Explorer only.
titleText inside this tag is ignored.
udir
uldir

Unsupported Tags

  • <base> tag with href attribute;
  • <div> tag with border, align and float CSS attribute;
  • <li> tag with list-style-image CSS attribute;
  • <margin> tag;
  • <tab> tag;
  • <table> tag with cols attribute;
  • <td> tab with bordercolor and nowrap attributes;
  • !important declaration;
  • word-wrap and break-word css properties;
  • css3 shapes;
  • <ui> tag with type attribute.

Export to Excel

When a report is exported to XLS or XLSX, the following rich-text content is converted from Rich Text controls into Excel-native rich-text content:

HTML Tags and RTF Equivalents
Text format<b>, <i>, <u>, <s>, <strong>, <em>
Line break<br>
Non-breaking space
Font<font face=[font name]>
Font size<font size=[font size]>
Foreground color<font color=[color]>