Exact page layout with rich text

Justeco

I need to generate some documents that have very precise layout. One is an invoice with a tear-off section that needs to have the addresses exactly where they need to be to be in the envelope windows. I also want to have sections of the page be rich text (multiple paragraphs in particular parts of the page).

It seems I can ALMOST do this with QTextLayout, but it is painful to have (for example) a single bold word in a paragraph. I have tried using QTextDocument, but I can not find a way to put the document on a section of the page (and another on another section...).

Is there not a way to have a few paragraphs of rich text laid out within a particular rectangle and placed on a page in a particular place? I can make a QTextLayout drop anywhere on a page, but I see no way to specify the beginning of a QTextDocument. I'm starting to think there isn't a way to do this easily.

Here's some code I was playing with. Some direction would be great! Thanks for your time.

@#include <QApplication>
#include <QTextStream>

#include <QFont>
#include <QFontMetrics>
#include <QPrinter>
#include <QPainter>
#include <QTextLayout>
#include <QTextDocument>

int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
QApplication app(argc, argv);

QFont font("DejaVu Sans", 10, QFont::Normal, false);

QPrinter printer(QPrinter::HighResolution);
printer.setOutputFileName("bill.ps");
printer.setPaperSize(QPrinter::Letter);
QPainter painter;
QFont paintFont(font, &printer);
QFontMetrics fontMetrics(paintFont);

int leading = fontMetrics.leading();
qreal height = 0;

QTextLayout textLayout("This is some text to be laid out.", paintFont);
textLayout.beginLayout();

while (1) {
    QTextLine line = textLayout.createLine();
    if (!line.isValid())
        break;

    line.setLineWidth(4800);
    height += leading;
    line.setPosition(QPointF(0, height));
    height += line.height();
}

textLayout.endLayout();

QTextDocument textPanel;
textPanel.setDefaultFont(paintFont);
textPanel.setTextWidth(4800);
textPanel.setPlainText("This is a larger chunk of text that should be turned into a nice paragraph or two at the right hand side of our first page.  However, despite reports that it can be done, I can't seem to figure out how to get a QTextDocument to display at a particular location on a page.  What gives?");

painter.begin(&printer);
textLayout.draw(&painter, QPoint(600, 600));
//painter.translate(QPoint(100, 100));
textPanel.drawContents(&painter, QRectF(100, 100, 4800, 6000));
painter.end();

}
@

goetz

HTML (on which the [[Doc:QTextDocument]] based classes rely on) are very hard to make pixel precise - if not impossible. In that case I personally would go with a QPainter and draw the contents directly. That way you have exact control over where your data is printed.