The Complex Text APIs in the Java2 platform enable clients to display and interact with text in visually complex scripts, such as bidirectional scripts or scripts in which the character-to-glyph mapping is not one-to-one. These APIs are easy to use for simple tasks, but also enable more advanced clients, such as text editors. Additionally, the Complex Text implementation is being enhanced with more scripts and features; clients using the Complex Text APIs can take advantage of these enhancements without modification.

This tutorial focuses on how to use the Complex Text APIs in a full-featured, multilingual text editor. Concrete scenarios are presented for working with tab-delimited segments on a line, representing styled text, working with host clipboards and text files, efficient display updating, mouse and keyboard support, and other topics. Code samples are taken from the IBM RichEdit control, a pure-Java multilingual text editor.