The Text Object Model (TOM) is a
Microsoft Windows
Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...
API
An application programming interface (API) is a connection between computers or between computer programs. It is a type of software interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that describes how to build ...
that provides developers with object-based rich text manipulation interfaces. It is implemented through
COM, and can be accessed through
Microsoft Word
Microsoft Word is a word processor program, word processing program developed by Microsoft. It was first released on October 25, 1983, under the name Multi-Tool Word for Xenix systems. Subsequent versions were later written for several other platf ...
or additionally through the RichEdit controls that normally ship with Windows.
History
When TOM was developed, it was influenced heavily by WordBasic,
a
macro language
In computer programming, a macro (short for "macro instruction"; ) is a rule or pattern that specifies how a certain input should be mapped to a replacement output. Applying a macro to an input is known as macro expansion.
The input and output ...
used within Word before
VBA (
Word 95 and previous releases). TOM has developed alongside the RichEdit technology, and has been present since version 1.0 of the RichEdit components.
The API has been available as an option for
Windows CE
Windows CE, later known as Windows Embedded CE and Windows Embedded Compact, is a discontinued operating system developed by Microsoft for mobile and embedded devices. It was part of the Windows Embedded family and served as the software foun ...
since the 2.5 release of RichEdit (Western Languages Only), which was at least used by
Pocket Word at that time.
Version 8.0 of RichEdit, which shipped with
Windows 8
Windows 8 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was Software release life cycle#Release to manufacturing (RTM), released to manufacturing on August 1, 2012, made available for download via Microsoft ...
, added support for
OpenType math
OpenType is a format for scalable computer fonts. Derived from TrueType, it retains TrueType's basic structure but adds many intricate data structures for describing typographic behavior. OpenType is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporat ...
.
Technical details
To retrieve an implemented instance of
ITextDocument interface (the top-level document interface), the
EM_GETOLEINTERFACE message may be sent via th
SendMessageAPI to obtain a pointer to an
IRichEditOle object, which also implements the
ITextDocument interface.
TOM may operate differently depending on the version of the RichEdit control the interface is retrieved for (RICHEDIT50W windows provide more functionality than the standard RICHEDIT20W or RICHEDIT20A controls, like proper table support).
COM Interfaces
;ITextDocument
:A top-level interface. Documents may be opened and saved through this interface. Some screen update control is achieved here as well. Undo/redo grouping is implemented here. Arbitrary text ranges (ITextRange) and a text range for currently selected text (ITextSelection) are provided, which are used to modify or review the document.
;ITextRange
:Provides editing and data-binding tools to select text within a document, that can be examined, modified, or removed. Ranges exist within paragraphs, and the paragraph a range is within is accessible through a property of this object.
:;ITextSelection
::Provides selection information, in addition to functionality provided by the ITextRange.
;ITextFont
:Dual Interface with ITextPara
:A mechanism for inspection and modification of rich edit font attributes, that is considerably more extensive that the standard OLE interface used to describe a font (IFontDisp, StdFont).
;ITextPara
:Dual Interface with ITextFont
:Provides extensive information about the position, formatting outside of fonts (e.g. first line indent), behavior (e.g. widow control), and purpose of a paragraph (it could be a normal paragraph, a list, a table, etc).
See also
*
Rich Text Format
)
As an example, the following RTF code
would be rendered as follows:
This is some bold text.
Character encoding
A standard RTF file can only consist of 7-bit ASCII characters, but can use escape sequences to encode other characters. ...
*
Component Object Model
Component Object Model (COM) is a binary-interface technology for software components from Microsoft that enables using objects in a language-neutral way between different programming languages, programming contexts, processes and machines ...
(COM)
*
Object Linking and Embedding
Object Linking and Embedding (OLE) is a proprietary technology developed by Microsoft that allows embedding and linking to documents and other objects. For developers, it brought OLE Control Extension (OCX), a way to develop and use custom user ...
(OLE)
References
External links
Text Object Model OverviewObtaining the TOM Object for a RichEdit ControlHistorical RichEdit/TOM informationWebArchive link
TOM Classes for .NET
{{Microsoft APIs
Microsoft application programming interfaces