ReText stores all of its configuration in a text file. A path to that file is printed to stdout during ReText startup.

Possible configuration options

Configuration options that you can set to improve your experience:

option name	type	description
`appStyleSheet`	file path	file containing a Qt stylesheet file
`autoSave`	boolean	whether to automatically save documents (default: false)
`defaultCodec`	string	name of encoding to use by default (default: use system encoding)
`defaultMarkup`	string	name of markup to use for unknown files
`defaultPreviewState`	string	mode for new tabs: `editor`, `normal-preview` or `live-preview` (default: `editor`)
`detectEncoding`	boolean	whether to automatically detect files encoding; needs chardet package (default: true)
`directoryPath`	string	the path to the root directory to display in the side panel if `showDirectoryTree` is true (default: `~`)
`documentStatsEnabled`	boolean	whether to show document stats (word count, character count) (default: false)
`editorFont`	string	font to use for editor (comma-separated string as returned by QFont.toString())
`font`	string	font to use for previews (comma-separated string as returned by QFont.toString())
`handleWebLinks`	boolean	whether to use ReText preview area to open external links (default: false)
`hideToolBar`	boolean	whether to hide the toolbars from the UI (default: false)
`highlightCurrentLine`	string	current line highlight mode: `disabled`, `cursor-line` or `wrapped-line` (default: `disabled`)
`iconTheme`	string	name of the system icon theme to use (see below)
`lineNumbersEnabled`	boolean	whether to show column with line numbers in editor (default: false)
`markdownDefaultFileExtension`	string	default file extension for Markdown files (default: `.mkd`)
`openFilesInExistingWindow`	boolean	whether to open new files in the existing window (default: true)
`openLastFilesOnStartup`	boolean	whether to automatically open last documents on startup (default: false)
`orderedListMode`	string	editor behavior for lists continuation: `increment` or `repeat` (default: `increment`)
`paperSize`	string	name of default page size to use for print and export (e.g. A4, Letter)
`pygmentsStyle`	string	name of Pygments syntax highlighting style to use (default: `default`)
`recentDocumentsCount`	integer	number of recent files to show in the menu (default: 10)
`relativeLineNumbers`	boolean	whether to show line numbers as relative from the current line (default: false)
`restDefaultFileExtension`	string	default file extension for reStructuredText files (default: `.rst`)
`rightMargin`	integer	enable drawing of vertical line on defined position (or 0 to disable)
`rightMarginWrap`	boolean	enable soft wrap at specified margin line (default: false)
`saveWindowGeometry`	boolean	whether to restore window geometry from previous session (default: false)
`showDirectoryTree`	boolean	whether to show a directory tree on the left side of the window (default: false)
`spellCheck`	boolean	whether to enable spell checking
`spellCheckLocale`	string	spell check locale to use, possibly comma-separated (examples: `pt_BR`, `ru,en_US`)
`styleSheet`	file path	CSS file to use in preview area
`syncScroll`	boolean	whether to enable synchronized scrolling for Markdown (default: true)
`tabBarAutoHide`	boolean	whether to hide the tabs bar when only one tab is open (default: false)
`tabInsertsSpaces`	boolean	whether Tab key should insert spaces instead of tabs (default: true)
`tabWidth`	integer	the width of tab character (default: 4)
`uiLanguage`	string	short name of locale to use for interface (examples: `en_US`, `ru`, `pt_BR`)
`useFakeVim`	boolean	whether to use the FakeVim editor, if available (default: false)
`useWebEngine`	boolean	whether to use the WebEngine (Chromium) as HTML previewer (default: false)
`wideCursor`	boolean	make cursor as wide as characters (default: false)
`windowTitleFullPath`	boolean	whether the window title should show the full path of file (default: false)

If the type is 'file path', then the value should be an absolute path to a file.

There is also a separate file called cache.conf which contains options that are set internally by ReText and should never be set manually:

lastFileList
lastTabIndex
recentFileList
splitterState
webEngineZoomFactor
windowGeometry

Icon themes

If ReText starts and does not show icons, go to Preferences dialog and fill the "icon theme" field with the icon theme being used.

By default Qt (the toolkit used by ReText) can correctly detect icon theme only on KDE and on a fixed list of GTK-based environments (when the gtk platformtheme is used).

If you don't know name of your icon theme, look at the names of subdirectories in /usr/share/icons/ directory.

Color scheme setting

It is possible to configure ReText highlighter to use custom colors set, by providing these colors in a separate section in the configuration file.

The example of such section is:

[ColorScheme]
htmlTags=green
htmlSymbols=#ff8800
htmlComments=#abc

Color names for the text editor:

color name	main setting	description
`marginLine`	`rightMargin`	the vertical right margin line
`currentLineHighlight`	`highlightCurrentLine`	highlighting of the text line being edited
`infoArea`		the info box in the bottom-right corner
`statsArea`	`documentStatsEnabled`	the stats box in the bottom-right corner
`lineNumberArea`	`lineNumbersEnabled`	the line numbers area background
`lineNumberAreaText`	`lineNumbersEnabled`	the line numbers area foreground

Color names for the highlighter:

color name	description
`htmlTags`	HTML tags, e.g. `<foo>`
`htmlStrings`	string properties inside HTML tags, e.g. `"baz"` inside `<foo bar="baz">`
`htmlSymbols`	HTML symbols, e.g. `&bar;`
`htmlComments`	HTML comments, e.g. `<!-- comment -->`
`markdownHeaders`	Markdown headers, e.g. `# Header`
`markdownLinks`	Markdown links and images text, e.g. `foo` inside `[foo](https://example.com)`
`blockquotes`	blockquotes, e.g. `> quote` in Markdown
`codeSpans`	code spans, e.g. `code` in Markdown
`restDirectives`	reStructuredText directives, e.g. `.. math::`
`restRoles`	reStructuredText roles, e.g. `:math:`
`whitespaceOnEnd`	whitespace at line endings

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