NuGet
Sample projects on GitHub
Every feature in this documentation has a runnable project behind it. They live in a public repository: github.com/spicelogic/winforms-html-editor-control-samples, and they are the same projects that ship inside the trial download. Each one is a small Windows Forms application referencing the shipping NuGet package, so there is nothing to wire up and no license key to obtain first - every sample runs on the free trial exactly as it is checked in.
The sample code is MIT licensed, so you can copy any of it straight into your own application. The control itself remains commercial and is installed from NuGet.
What is in the repository
Eleven samples, most of them shipping a C# project and a VB.NET twin side by side in a matching -VB folder, both wired into the same solution.
- 01-Quickstart-CS - the smallest possible host: dock the editor, set
BodyHtml, react toHtmlChanged. Start here to see the control running in under a minute. - 02-LoadAndSaveHtml-CS - the practical difference between
BodyHtml, which is what you store in a database column, andDocumentHtml, the complete document including the head. - 03-PasteFromWord-CS - intercepting the
Pastingevent to strip Word and Outlook markup, with a before and after view so you can see what was removed. - 04-ToolbarCustomization-CS - hiding built-in buttons, relocating editor commands into a toolbar of your own through
ToolbarItemOverrider, and adding buttons that act on the document. - 05-MailMergeTemplate-CS - registering merge fields, the built-in placeholder toolbar, and previewing a template with a record substituted in.
- 06-DataBinding-CS - binding
BodyHtmlandDocumentHtmlthrough aBindingSourceto a record, with a navigator and grid, exactly the way you would bind a TextBox. - 07-Localization-CS - switching the editor UI language at runtime, and overriding individual strings through a JSON file.
- 08-CustomSpellChecker-CS - plugging your own spell-check engine in behind the editor's inline checking.
- 09-CustomDialog-CS - replacing every built-in dialog (image, hyperlink, table, symbol, search, spell check, style builder) with your own, so the editor carries your branding.
- 10-CustomContextMenu-CS - replacing the right-click menu with your own commands.
- 11-FullEditorDemo-CS - the wider tour: editor options, high DPI scaling, a persistent user dictionary, and document-level styling.
Which .NET version you need
Use whichever target framework your application already uses. The NuGet package ships binaries for .NET Framework 4.5, 4.7.2 and 4.8, plus .NET 5 through .NET 10 on Windows.
The sample projects intentionally target net48 by default. This provides broad out-of-the-box Visual Studio compatibility and avoids requiring the latest .NET SDK merely to open and build a sample. It does not limit the control or sample code to .NET Framework 4.8.
To use another supported target, change the Target framework from the project's Application property page in Visual Studio. To retarget every sample at once, change the single shared setting in Directory.Build.props at the repository root:
<TargetFramework>net48</TargetFramework>For example, change it to net10.0-windows to build the samples on .NET 10. NuGet automatically selects the matching package asset for the framework you choose.
Every sample is verified building on net45, net472, net48, net8.0-windows and net10.0-windows. The sample code already includes the small framework-specific adjustments it needs, so retargeting does not require manual source edits.
Running the samples
You need Windows and the SDK matching whichever target you build against.
git clone https://github.com/spicelogic/winforms-html-editor-control-samples.git cd winforms-html-editor-control-samples dotnet build WinFormsHtmlEditorSamples.sln dotnet run --project 01-Quickstart-CSYou can also open WinFormsHtmlEditorSamples.sln in Visual Studio and set any project as the startup project.
Building on WPF as well
The WPF edition has its own sample repository covering MVVM binding, theming, custom dialogs and mail merge: github.com/spicelogic/wpf-html-editor-control-samples. See the WPF HTML Editor control for the product itself.