I've had the same problem (if I've read yours correctly). I've tried several approaches to have text written across the icon on a QPushButton. This is what finally worked for me:

Working code:
Qt Code:
  1. QPixmap pixmap(":/Icons/icon.png");
  2. pixmap=pixmap.scaled(QSize(ui->appButton->width(),ui->appButton->height()),Qt::IgnoreAspectRatio,Qt::SmoothTransformation);
  3. QPalette palette;
  4. palette.setBrush(ui->appButton->backgroundRole(),QBrush(pixmap));
  5. ui->appButton->setFlat(true);
  6. ui->appButton->setAutoFillBackground(true);
  7. ui->appButton->setPalette(palette);
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What did not work (text at the side) was:
Qt Code:
  1. ui->appButton->setFlat(true);
  2. ui->appButton->setAutoFillBackground(true);
  3. QIcon img(":/Icons/icon.png");
  4. ui->appButton->setIcon(img);
  5. ui->appButton->setIconSize(QSize(ui->appButton->width(),ui->appButton->height()));
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What I could not use (no scaling possible) was:
Qt Code:
  1. ui->appButton->setStyleSheet("background-image: url(:/Icons/icin.png);");
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