Keyboard Support

Updated on Sep 15, 2025

Telerik RichTextBox for WPF supports the commanding mechanism in WPF. There are default key-bindings defined for the most widely used commands.

 

Action	Hotkey
Open new document	Ctrl+N
Open existing document	Ctrl+O
Save	Ctrl+S
Print	Ctrl+P
Copy	Ctrl+C
Paste	Ctrl+V
Cut	Ctrl+X
Delete	Delete
Delete previous symbol	Back, Ctrl+Back, Shift+Back
Undo	Ctrl+Z
Redo	Ctrl+Y
InsertLineBreak	Shift+Enter
InsertPageBreak	Ctrl+Enter
InsertColumnBreak	Ctrl+Enter, Shift+Enter
ToggleBold	Ctrl+B, Ctrl+Shift+B
ToggleItalic	Ctrl+I, Ctrl+Shift+I
ToggleSuperscript	Ctrl+'+'
ToggleSubscript	Ctrl+Shift+'+'
ToggleUnderline	Ctrl+U
ToggleFormattingSymbols	Ctrl+D8, Shift+D8
ClearFormatting	Ctrl+Space
CopyFormatting	Ctrl+Shift+C
PasteFormatting	Ctrl+Shift+V
CancelFormatPainter or ExitHeaderFooterEditMode, depending on the current editing context	Esc
IncrementFontSize	Ctrl+Shift+OemPeriod
DecrementFontSize	Ctrl+Shift+OemComma
ChangeTextAlignment with parameter RadTextAlignment.Justify	Ctrl+J
ChangeTextAlignment with parameter RadTextAlignment.Right	Ctrl+R
ChangeTextAlignment with parameter RadTextAlignment.Left	Ctrl+L
ChangeTextAlignment with parameter RadTextAlignment.Center	Ctrl+E
TabForward	Tab
TabBackward	Shift+Tab
InsertText with parameter "\t"	Ctrl+Tab
Insert non-breaking space	Ctrl+Space
SelectAll	Ctrl+A
MoveCaret with parameter MoveCaretDirections.Previous	Left Arrow
MoveCaret with parameter MoveCaretDirections.Next	Right Arrow
MoveCaret with parameter MoveCaretDirections.PreviousWord	Ctrl+Left Arrow
MoveCaret with parameter MoveCaretDirections.NextWord	Ctrl+Right Arrow
MoveCaret with parameter MoveCaretDirections.Up	Upper Arrow
MoveCaret with parameter MoveCaretDirections.Down	Down Arrow
MoveCaret with parameter MoveCaretDirections. ParagraphStart	Ctrl+Upper Arrow
MoveCaret with parameter MoveCaretDirections. ParagraphEnd	Ctrl+Down Arrow
MoveCaret with parameter MoveCaretDirections.Home	Home
MoveCaret with parameter MoveCaretDirections.DocumentStart. This moves the caret at the first position of the document.	Ctrl+Home
MoveCaret with parameter MoveCaretDirections.End	End
MoveCaret with parameter MoveCaretDirections.DocumentEnd	Ctrl+End
MoveCaret with parameter MoveCaretDirections.PageUp	PageUp
MoveCaret with parameter MoveCaretDirections.PageDown	PageDown
ShowSpellCheckingDialog	F7
ShowFindReplaceDialog	Ctrl+F
ShowFontPropertiesDialog	Ctrl+D
ShowInsertHyperlinkDialog	Ctrl+K

Now these key bindings can be overridden and customized to the liking of the user. What is more, new bindings can be added to both the Commands exposed through the RichTextBoxCommands class or to user-defined ones in a quite straight-forward way. This is how it can be done in XAML:

Example 1: Customize InputBindings

XAML

    <telerik:RadRichTextBox Name="radRichTextBox">
      <telerik:RadRichTextBox.InputBindings>
        <!-- Bind Spell Checking to Ctrl+Shift+S -->
        <KeyBinding Gesture="Ctrl+Shift+S" Command="telerikDocs:RichTextBoxCommands.ShowSpellCheckingDialog"/>
        <!-- Stop Toggle Bold on Ctrl+Shift+B -->
        <KeyBinding Gesture="Ctrl+Shift+B"/>
        <!-- Re-map Ctrl+Space from Clear Formating to ShowManageBookmarksDialog -->
        <KeyBinding Gesture="Ctrl+Space" Command="telerikDocs:RichTextBoxCommands.ShowManageBookmarksDialog"/>
      </telerik:RadRichTextBox.InputBindings>
    </telerik:RadRichTextBox>

Please note that in the above code snippet the telerikDocs namespace is defined as follows:

Example 2: Namespace definition

XAML

	xmlns:telerikDocs="clr-namespace:Telerik.Windows.Documents.RichTextBoxCommands;assembly=Telerik.Windows.Documents"

Example 3: Disable the shortcut for creating a new document in code-behind

C#

    
    this.radRichTextBox.RegisteredApplicationCommands.Remove(System.Windows.Input.ApplicationCommands.New);

Some of the key combinations included by default in RadRichTextBox pass different parameters to the commands so that they can execute according to the current context. An example of such commands are TabForward and TabBackward.

• By default, the tab symbol can always be inserted with Ctrl+Tab shortcut.

• By default, the Tab shortcut is bound to the TabForward command - a command with more complex, context-dependent behavior. You can remap the shortcut to the InsertText command with the tab symbol as a parameter.

Example 4: Remap the shortcut to different command

XAML

    <telerik:RadRichTextBox >
        <telerik:RadRichTextBox.InputBindings>
            <KeyBinding Gesture="Tab" Command="telerikDocs:RichTextBoxCommands.InsertText" CommandParameter="&#x09;" />
        </telerik:RadRichTextBox.InputBindings>
    </telerik:RadRichTextBox>

You can fine-tune the behavior of the TabForward command, which is bound to the Tab shortcut by default using the exposed parameter values.

Example 5: Customize command behavior through its parameters

XAML

    <telerik:RadRichTextBox.InputBindings>
        <KeyBinding Gesture="Tab" Command="telerikDocs:RichTextBoxCommands.TabForward" CommandParameter="InsertTabSymbol, ChangeParagraphListLevel, ChangeParagraphLeftIndent, NavigateInTable, AppendTableRow" />
    </telerik:RadRichTextBox.InputBindings>

You can check the Simulate Watermark SDK example which demonstrates how you can modify the InputBindings collection of RadRichTextBox in code-behind.

Sometimes overriding the key bindings does not provide sufficient support, as depending on the language and the keyboard, different ModifierKeys are registered. For example, pressing RightAlt causes Control and Alt to be sent as arguments to the PreviewKeyDown event. Thus, RightAlt+E triggers a formatting command for paragraph alignment instead of inputting the ę character. In that case, you can handle the PreviewEditorKeyDown event in the following way:

Example 6: Customizing the behavior of a keyboard combination

C#

	  this.radRichTextBox.PreviewEditorKeyDown += (sender, args) =>
         {
             if (Keyboard.Modifiers.HasFlag(ModifierKeys.Alt) && Keyboard.Modifiers.HasFlag(ModifierKeys.Control) && args.Key == Key.E)
             {
                 args.SuppressDefaultAction = true;
                 args.OriginalArgs.Handled = true;
                 this.radRichTextBox.Insert("€");
             }
         };

See Also

• Commands
• Clipboard Support
• Formatting API
• Simulate Watermark SDK example