Tkinter Widget Size

Tkinter Widget Size

In this tutorial, you will learn how Tkinter widget size works in various contexts.

Understanding the Tkinter Widget Size

In Tkinter, when you set the width and height for a widget (e.g., a Label), the size is measured by characters and lines, not pixels.

For example, the following program creates a Label widget with a width of 10 characters:

import tkinter as tk

root = tk.Tk()
root.title('Tkinter Widget Size')
root.geometry("400x200")

label1 = tk.Label(master=root, text="Example", bg='blue', fg='white', width=10)
label1.pack()

root.mainloop()
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The width of the label is 10 characters. However, if you increase the font size, the width of the label widget in pixels will also increase accordingly.

Example: Increasing Font Size

The following program sets the width of the Label widget to 10 but increases the font size to 24px, which increases the widget's width:

import tkinter as tk

root = tk.Tk()
root.title('Tkinter Widget Size Example')
root.geometry("400x200")

label1 = tk.Label(
    master=root, 
    text="Resized",
    bg='green',
    fg='white',
    width=10, 
    font=('Arial', 24)
)
label1.pack()

root.mainloop()
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Effect of Layout Methods

The size of the widget is not only determined by its properties like width and height but also influenced by layout methods such as pack(), grid(), and place().

Example: Using Pack with Fill

The following program sets the width of the Label widget to 20, but the pack() method uses fill=tk.X, instructing the widget to fill all horizontal space:

import tkinter as tk

root = tk.Tk()
root.title('Tkinter Widget Size Example')
root.geometry("400x200")

label1 = tk.Label(master=root, text="Filled", bg='purple', fg='white', width=20)
label1.pack(fill=tk.X)

root.mainloop()
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Conclusion

In this tutorial, you learned how to manage the size of Tkinter widgets:

  • Widget sizes are defined in characters and lines, not pixels.
  • Font size affects the width of the widget.
  • Layout methods such as pack(), grid(), and place() can override size settings.

Understanding these principles will help you design better Tkinter applications with appropriate widget sizes.