Lead titanate based ferroelectric thin films are well known for their excellent piezo and pyroelectric properties. In order to obtain a complete characterisation of the structural, micro structural and texture parameters of these films, a recently developed combined analysis of the X-ray diffraction data is carried out. The advantages of this approach reside in the fact that we obtain simultaneously quantitative and more reliable information of these parameters than with more conventional methods. Results obtained for ferroelectric thin films are analysed and compared with those obtained with other methods of analysis. The conclusions show that the texture of the films obtained with the combined method is able to separate the contributions of close texture components, like <100> and <001>, or to study components with low contribution to the texture of the film. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.