TextElement

A textelement is a software construct used in document models and rendering pipelines to represent a discrete run of text. It encapsulates the textual content and typographic properties that govern its presentation, including font family, font size, weight, style, color, alignment, line height, and wrapping behavior.

In layout and rendering, a textelement provides the text to be measured and drawn by the engine. It participates in line breaking, kerning, and shaping, and may support bidirectional text, scripts, and Unicode features like ligatures. It can be plain text or a container for spans or runs in rich-text scenarios.

Common properties include content, font, fontSize, color, textAlign, wrap, maxWidth, and lineHeight. Methods may include measure, render, and updateContent, and it may expose events for changes or user interaction.

Examples are found in various platforms. In vector graphics, SVG defines a text element to render glyphs at given coordinates. In desktop UI frameworks, components named TextElement or its subclasses (such as Run or Paragraph in some frameworks) model the same concept. In web development, the equivalent is a text node or inline elements that carry plain text within a layout element.

Challenges include handling multilingual and bidirectional text, accessibility, and performance for long passages. Text elements are a foundational primitive in document editors, typesetting, and user interfaces, enabling consistent measurement, styling, and rendering of textual content.