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Paragraph

Updated on Jun 16, 2026

The Paragraph class allows you to separate the content into paragraphs. It is responsible for displaying inline elements such as Run, FloatingImage, ImageInline, and others. You can also configure the appearance of the paragraph by modifying its parameters.

Inserting a Paragraph
Modifying a Paragraph
Operating with a Paragraph

Inserting a Paragraph

Paragraphs can be added as a child of a BlockContainer element—Section, TableCell, Headers and Footers—through the Blocks collection.

The code snippet from Example 1 creates and inserts a Paragraph in a Section.

Example 1: Insert paragraph in section

RadFlowDocument document = new RadFlowDocument();
			Section section = document.Sections.AddSection();

			Paragraph paragraph = new Paragraph(document);
			section.Blocks.Add(paragraph);

The parent BlockContainer element (in this case, the section) must belong to the same document that is passed to the constructor of the Paragraph.

You can add a paragraph at a specific index in the Blocks collection of a BlockContainer using the Insert() method. Example 2 demonstrates how to add a paragraph at the beginning of a section.

Example 2: Insert a paragraph at a specific position of the Blocks collection

Paragraph paragraph1 = new Paragraph(document);
			section.Blocks.Insert(0, paragraph1);

You can also use the AddParagraph() method of the Blocks collection of a BlockContainer. The method creates a new Paragraph instance, adds it to the container, and returns it.

Example 3: Create a new paragraph and add it to a section

Paragraph paragraph2 = section.Blocks.AddParagraph();

You can also insert a new Paragraph in the document with the RadFlowDocumentEditor class.

Example 4: Insert a paragraph using the RadFlowDocumentEditor

RadFlowDocumentEditor editor = new RadFlowDocumentEditor(new RadFlowDocument());
			Paragraph paragraph3 = editor.InsertParagraph();

Modifying a Paragraph

Paragraph exposes several properties that allow you to customize the layout of the elements placed underneath it. The following list describes them:

Properties: Gets all paragraph properties as a ParagraphProperties object. More information on how to use section properties is available in the Style Properties article.
StyleId: Represents the ID of the style applied on the Paragraph element.
Inlines: Represents the inline elements in the paragraph. Exposes methods for adding a Run, an ImageInline, and a FloatingImage element.
FlowDirection: Specifies the text flow direction. The default value is LeftToRight.
TextAlignment: Represents the alignment of the text inside the Paragraph.
Spacing: Defines the Paragraph spacing.
KeepOnOnePage: Indicates whether the Paragraph is rendered on one page when the document is shown in page view mode.
KeepWithNextParagraph: Indicates whether the Paragraph is rendered at least partly on the same page with the following paragraph when this is possible and when the document is shown in page view mode.
OutlineLevel: Defines the level of the Paragraph in a TOC field. The default value is Level9 (no level).
ApplyEastAsianLineBreakingRules: Specifies whether East-Asian line breaking rules are applied to the Paragraph.
PageBreakBefore: Specifies whether the Paragraph is rendered on a new page when the document is shown in page view mode.
Borders: Defines the borders of the Paragraph.
ContextualSpacing: Defines whether spacing before/after is ignored when the preceding/following paragraph has the same paragraph style.
MirrorIndents: Defines whether left and right indents are swapped on odd pages.
Indentation: Defines a set of indentations that can be applied to a Paragraph element through a ParagraphIndentation object. ParagraphIndentation is a composite object and its properties are listed below. All the values of these properties are in device independent pixels (1/96 inch).
- FirstLineIndent: Indicates the additional indentation that is applied to the first line of the paragraph.
- HangingIndent: Specifies a value that is removed from the indentation of the first line of the paragraph, by moving the indentation on the first line back towards the beginning of the direction of text flow.
- LeftIndent: Indicates the indentation that is applied to the left side of the whole paragraph.
- RightIndent: Indicates the indentation that is applied to the right side of the whole paragraph.
Shading: Represents the shading applied to the paragraph. It is a composite object and is read-only. You can obtain the following properties from it:
- BackgroundColor: Specifies the background color for the shading.
- PatternColor: Specifies the pattern color for the shading.
- Pattern: Specifies the pattern that is used to lay the pattern color over the background color for the shading.
AllowOverflowPunctuation: Defines whether the last punctuation character on a line can overflow in paragraph margin/indent.
ListId: Specifies the list ID.
ListLevel: Gets a value indicating that the paragraph references a list style. The default value is -1, meaning that list style is not referenced.
TabStops: Immutable collection that holds the tab stops of the Paragraph. More information is available in the TabStop article.

Operating with a Paragraph

You can add inline elements to a Paragraph instance.

Adding a Run

Example 5 illustrates how to add a run to an existing paragraph.

Example 5: Insert run in a paragraph

Run run = paragraph.Inlines.AddRun();

For more information about the Run element, refer to the Run article.

Adding an ImageInline

Example 6 adds an inline image to an existing paragraph.

Example 6: Insert image inline

ImageInline imageInline = paragraph.Inlines.AddImageInline();

For more information about the ImageInline element, refer to the ImageInline article.

Adding a FloatingImage

The code snippet from Example 7 adds a floating image to an existing paragraph.

Example 7: Add floating image

FloatingImage floatingImage = paragraph.Inlines.AddFloatingImage();

For more information about the FloatingImage element, refer to the FloatingImage article.

Adding a TabStop

Example 8 demonstrates how to add a tab stop to the paragraph's collection.

Example 8: Insert TabStop

TabStop tabstop = new TabStop(Unit.InchToDip(2), TabStopType.Center, TabStopLeader.Hyphen);
			paragraph.TabStops = paragraph.TabStops.Insert(tabstop);

You can refer to the TabStop article for more details about this element.

Setting Borders

Example 9 shows how to create borders and set them to a Paragraph.

Example 9: Setting Borders

Border blackBorder = new Border(1, BorderStyle.Single, new ThemableColor(Colors.Black));
			Border redBorder = new Border(2, BorderStyle.Single, new ThemableColor(Colors.Red));

			paragraph.Borders = paragraph.Borders.SetLeft(blackBorder).SetRight(redBorder).SetTop(blackBorder).SetBottom(redBorder);