+1 for automatic memory management. But is there a reason to not just say

QPixmap pixmap;

? From top of my head, QPixmap is already a small handle to implicitly shared COW pixmap data. So, no need to wrap it again.

This assumes m_pageView->textSelectionForItem transfers ownership for the returned RegularAreaRect*. That's actually true, but we can only tell it by looking at the code inside TextPage::textArea.

Would be nice if we could make ownership explicit throughout the call chain. But I'm afraid it's problematic because TextPage::textArea is part of public interface and we don't want to change it?

If you can't change it, just go on. It's not a problem introduced by your patch but already existed before.

Would be nice if we could make ownership explicit throughout the call chain.

Agreed

But I'm afraid it's problematic because TextPage::textArea is part of public interface and we don't want to change it?

Not sure. But I'd rather leave that to a separate diff.