This is an unofficial mirror of Tkinter reference documentation (based on Python 2.7 and Tk 8.5) created by the late John Shipman.
It was last updated in 2013 and is unmaintained. [More info]
Text widgets are a much more generalized method for
handling multiple lines of text than the Label
widget. Text widgets are pretty much a complete text
editor in a window:
You can mix text with different fonts, colors, and backgrounds.
You can intersperse embedded images with text. An
image is treated as a single character. See Section 24.3, “Text
widget images”.
An index is a way of describing
a specific position between two characters of a text
widget. See Section 24.1, “Text
widget indices”.
A text widget may contain invisible
mark objects between character
positions. See Section 24.2, “Text
widget marks”.
Text widgets allow you to define names for regions of
the text called tags. You can
change the appearance of a tagged region, changing its
font, foreground and background colors, and other
option. See Section 24.5, “Text
widget tags”.
You can bind events to a tagged region. See Section 54, “Events”.
You can even embed a text widget in a
“window” containing any Tkinter
widget—even a frame widget containing other
widgets. A window is also treated as a single
character. See Section 24.4, “Text
widget windows”.
To create a text widget as the child of a root window or
frame named
:
parent
w
= tk.Text(parent
,option
, ...)
The constructor returns the new Text
widget.
Options include:
Table 33. Text
widget options
autoseparators |
If the undo option is set, the autoseparators option controls whether
separators are automatically added to the undo
stack after each insertion or deletion (if autoseparators=True ) or not (if autoseparators=False ). For an overview of
the undo mechanism, see Section 24.7, “The Text widget undo/redo
stack”.
|
bg or background
| The default background color of the text widget. See Section 5.3, “Colors”. |
bd or
borderwidth | The width of the border around the text widget; see Section 5.1, “Dimensions”. The default is two pixels. |
cursor
| The cursor that will appear when the mouse is over the text widget. See Section 5.8, “Cursors”. |
exportselection
|
Normally, text selected within a text widget is
exported to be the selection in the window manager.
Set exportselection=0 if you don't
want that behavior.
|
font
| The default font for text inserted into the widget. Note that you can have multiple fonts in the widgets by using tags to change the properties of some text. See Section 5.4, “Type fonts”. |
fg or foreground
| The color used for text (and bitmaps) within the widget. You can change the color for tagged regions; this option is just the default. |
height
|
The height of the widget in
lines (not pixels!), measured
according to the current font size.
|
highlightbackground
| The color of the focus highlight when the text widget does not have focus. See Section 53, “Focus: routing keyboard input”. |
highlightcolor
| The color of the focus highlight when the text widget has the focus. |
highlightthickness
|
The thickness of the focus highlight. Default is
1 . Set highlightthickness=0 to suppress display
of the focus highlight.
|
insertbackground
| The color of the insertion cursor. Default is black. |
insertborderwidth
|
Size of the 3-D border around the insertion cursor.
Default is 0 .
|
insertofftime
| The number of milliseconds the insertion cursor is off during its blink cycle. Set this option to zero to suppress blinking. Default is 300. |
insertontime
| The number of milliseconds the insertion cursor is on during its blink cycle. Default is 600. |
insertwidth
| Width of the insertion cursor (its height is determined by the tallest item in its line). Default is 2 pixels. |
maxundo |
This option sets the maximum number of operations
retained on the undo stack. For an overview of the
undo mechanism, see Section 24.7, “The Text widget undo/redo
stack”. Set this option to -1 to specify an unlimited
number of entries in the undo stack.
|
padx
| The size of the internal padding added to the left and right of the text area. Default is one pixel. For possible values, see Section 5.1, “Dimensions”. |
pady
| The size of the internal padding added above and below the text area. Default is one pixel. |
relief
|
The 3-D appearance of the text widget. Default is
relief=tk.SUNKEN ; for other values, see
Section 5.6, “Relief styles”.
|
selectbackground
| The background color to use displaying selected text. |
selectborderwidth
| The width of the border to use around selected text. |
selectforeground
| The foreground color to use displaying selected text. |
spacing1
|
This option specifies how much extra vertical space
is put above each line of text. If a line wraps,
this space is added only before the first line it
occupies on the display. Default is 0 .
|
spacing2
|
This option specifies how much extra vertical space
to add between displayed lines of text when a
logical line wraps. Default is 0 .
|
spacing3
|
This option specifies how much extra vertical space
is added below each line of text. If a line wraps,
this space is added only after the last line it
occupies on the display. Default is 0 .
|
state
|
Normally, text widgets respond to keyboard and
mouse events; set state=tk.NORMAL to
get this behavior. If you set state=tk.DISABLED , the text widget will not
respond, and you won't be able to modify its
contents programmatically either.
|
tabs
|
This option controls how tab characters position
text. See Section 24.6, “Setting tabs in a Text widget”.
|
takefocus
|
Normally, focus will visit a text widget (see Section 53, “Focus: routing keyboard input”). Set takefocus=0
if you do not want focus in the widget.
|
undo |
Set this option to True to enable
the undo mechanism, or False to
disable it. See Section 24.7, “The Text widget undo/redo
stack”.
|
width
| The width of the widget in characters (not pixels!), measured according to the current font size. |
wrap
|
This option controls the display of lines that are
too wide.
|
xscrollcommand
|
To make the text widget horizontally scrollable,
set this option to the .set method
of the horizontal scrollbar.
|
yscrollcommand
|
To make the text widget vertically scrollable, set
this option to the .set method of
the vertical scrollbar.
|