Python how to install tkinter

How to install Tkinter?

4 Answers 4

Trending sort

Trending sort is based off of the default sorting method — by highest score — but it boosts votes that have happened recently, helping to surface more up-to-date answers.

It falls back to sorting by highest score if no posts are trending.

Switch to Trending sort

Should be there already man.

For Linux with aptitude :

If you’re using Python 3 then you must install as follows (writing in a terminal):

Tkinter for Python 2 ( python-tk ) is different from Python 3 ‘s ( python3-tk ).

I assume you’re using Windows. If so.

Step 1. Ignore the people who say to import tkinter as tk or «It should already be there».

You’re not the only person to have this problem despite apparently every post on the Internet telling you one of those two (utterly unproductive) statements. *deep breath*

Step 2. Understand what you’re trying to do.

Maybe you didn’t install Tcl/Tk and tkinter when Python installed. Maybe you decided to use a different GUI framework. Maybe you thought «Why should I install something that I’ll never use, along with an IDE I’ll never use.» Maybe you later found out that a third-party library like seaborn requires it. *deep breath*

Step 3. Figure out how you want to accomplish the two things you’re trying to do.

You have two options:

Option 1. Install Tcl/Tk manually. Then maybe you can find some saint who has packaged tkinter for you. But maybe the versioning isn’t correct. So you could compile it from source and/or learn a lot about how Python packaging works.

Option 2. Rerun the Python installer. Select «Modify». Make sure that the » tcl/tk and IDLE » checkbox is ticked and press «Next» a bunch.

If all else fails, burn everything down and start from scratch. But hopefully the second option works for you like it did for me. 🙂

How to pip or easy_install tkinter on Windows

My Idle is throwing errors that and says tkinter can’t be imported.

There seem to be a lot of package names flying around for this.

This and other assorted variations with tkinter-pypy aren’t working.

I’m on Windows with Python 2.7 and I don’t have apt-get or other system package managers.

14 Answers 14

Trending sort

Trending sort is based off of the default sorting method — by highest score — but it boosts votes that have happened recently, helping to surface more up-to-date answers.

It falls back to sorting by highest score if no posts are trending.

Switch to Trending sort

The Tkinter library is built-in with every Python installation. And since you are on Windows, I believe you installed Python through the binaries on their website?

If so, Then most probably you are typing the command wrong. It should be:

Note the capital T at the beginning of Tkinter.

If you are using virtualenv, it is fine to install tkinter using sudo apt-get install python-tk (python2), sudo apt-get install python3-tk (python3), and and it will work fine in the virtual environment

Well I can see two solutions here:

Tkinter (and, since Python 3.1, ttk) are included with all standard Python distributions. It is important that you use a version of Python supporting Tk 8.5 or greater, and ttk. We recommend installing the «ActivePython» distribution from ActiveState, which includes everything you’ll need.

In your web browser, go to Activestate.com, and follow along the links to download the Community Edition of ActivePython for Windows. Make sure you’re downloading a 3.1 or newer version, not a 2.x version.

This should give you the Python command prompt. From the prompt, enter these two commands:

This should pop up a small window; the first line at the top of the window should say «This is Tcl/Tk version 8.5»; make sure it is not 8.4!

2) Uninstall 64-bit Python and install 32 bit Python.

Installing Tk

In this chapter, you’ll get Tk installed on your machine, verify it works, and then see a quick example of what a Tk program looks like.

Jump to Tk Install Instructions:

Though pretty much all macOS and Linux machines come with Tk installed already, it’s often an older version (typically 8.4.x or an early 8.5). You want to make sure you’ve got at least version 8.5 (preferably 8.6) to use the new widget set, so if that’s not already there, you’ll want to install the newer version.

You’ll need both Tk and bindings for the language you’re using it from. Sometimes these are bundled together, sometimes not. Though there are lots of ways to install Tk, often the easiest is to download and install one of the versions provided by ActiveState (www.activestate.com).

Users of recent Python versions can avoid this intermediate step. Starting with Python 3.7, the binary installers available at python.org now include everything you need to use Tk out of the box. If you’re using an earlier Python version, or want to compile it yourself, you’ll need to install Tcl/Tk on your system to do so. In this case, ActiveState’s distributions are still the recommended way to go.

Remember, this tutorial assumes you’re using Python 3, not Python 2. There are some significant differences between the two, including module naming, which is the first thing you’ll encounter when trying Tkinter.

ActiveState is a company that sells professional developer tools for dynamic languages. They also provide (for free) quality-controlled distributions of some of these languages, and happen to employ a number of core developers of these languages.

Installing Tk on macOS

Install Tk for Python (Tkinter) on macOS

The Easy Way

As noted, the easiest way to get Tk and Tkinter installed on your system is using Python’s binary installer, available at python.org. Thanks to work by Python core developer Ned Deily, binary installers starting with version 3.7 include Tcl and Tk.

Remember, we’re using Python 3.x here, not 2.x. As of this writing, the latest 3.9 installer (3.9.0rc1) includes Tk 8.6.8.

If, however, you’re compiling Python yourself, you’ll have more work to do. Read on.

Installing Tcl/Tk

The Tkinter module is included with core Python, of course, but you’ll need a version of Tcl/Tk on your system to compile it against. Do yourself a huge favor and get the most recent version.

Whatever you do, do not rely on the Tk versions included in macOS! Older versions included Tk 8.4.x. Even more recent macOS versions include an early 8.5 version (8.5.9, released in 2010), which has several serious bugs easily triggered by Tkinter.

While there are several ways to get Tcl and Tk onto your machine, the easiest and most recommended is to use the ActiveTcl distribution.

In your web browser, visit www.activestate.com/products/activetcl. Download ActiveTcl (as of this writing, it’s version 8.6.9). Make sure to download an 8.6.x version, not something older! Note that you will need to create an account with ActiveState (no cost) to download it. After it’s downloaded, run the installer to get Tcl and Tk loaded onto your machine.

If you’re a masochist and want to read about other Tcl/Tk options and variations and how they interact with Python, see the Mac Tcl/Tk page at python.org If you want to compile Tcl/Tk from its source, see www.tcl.tk.

Compiling Python

When compiling Python from source, you may need to tell it where to find the ActiveTcl (or other) distribution. Otherwise, it might not find any Tcl/Tk distribution (so Tkinter won’t work), or it could find the (ancient and broken) version of Tcl/Tk supplied with macOS.

The initial «%» is the Unix shell prompt; you don’t have to type it. The rest of it should all go on one line without adding line breaks.

If you have multiple versions of Tcl/Tk installed on your system (and in the same frameworks), you may need to check inside the framework to ensure the most recent version is marked as the current one. If not, you may need to adjust your paths to point to the specific version (i.e., Versions/8.x/ ) within each framework.

When everything is built, be sure to test it out. Start Python from your terminal, e.g.

This should give you the Python command prompt. From the prompt, enter these two commands:

This should pop up a small window; the first line at the top of the window should say, «This is Tcl/Tk version 8.6»; make sure it is not 8.4 or 8.5!

You can also get the exact version of Tcl/Tk that is being used with:

It should return something like ‘8.6.9’.

Verified install using ActiveTcl 8.6.9.8609.2 and Python 3.90rc1 source code from python.org on macOS 10.15.6.

Install Tk for Tcl on macOS

On macOS, the easiest way to get Tk is to install the «ActiveTcl» distribution from ActiveState, which includes Tcl, Tk, plus a number of other extension libraries.

In your web browser, go to www.activestate.com, and follow along the links to download the Community Edition of ActiveTcl. Note that you will need to create an account with ActiveState (no cost) to download it. Make sure you’re downloading an 8.6.x version, not an older version.

Run the installer to get everything loaded onto your machine. When you’re done, you’ll find a shiny new application called «Wish 8.6» inside the Utilities folder of your Applications folder. This is the «wish» shell, an application that includes both Tcl and Tk.

If you launch that application, you’ll see two windows popup (see below), one titled «Wish» which will contain your application, and the second titled «Console» which is where you can type in Tcl/Tk commands.

The Wish application running on macOS.

For convenient use from the Unix command line, you’ll also find a script installed as /usr/local/bin/wish8.6 which will launch the same application.

To verify the exact version of Tcl/Tk that you are running, from the Wish console type the following:

We want this to be returning something like ‘8.6.9’.

Verified install using ActiveTcl 8.6.9.8609.2 on macOS 10.15.6.

Install Tk for Ruby (Ruby/Tk) on macOS

While previous versions of macOS included both Ruby and Tk (albeit older 8.4 versions), since Snow Leopard this has no longer been the case.

Ruby/Tk is a binding that links against an existing but separate Tk library. So, to get the latest version of Tk for Ruby, we’re going to have to do first download the latest 8.6.x Tcl/Tk version from ActiveState.

Install ActiveTcl

The «ActiveTcl» distribution from ActiveState contains the latest Tk, as well as the latest version of Tcl (which Ruby’s Tk bindings use internally to talk to Tk). In your web browser, go to www.activestate.com, and follow along the links to download the Community Edition of ActiveTcl. Note that you will need to create an account with ActiveState (no cost) to download it. Again, make sure you’re downloading an 8.6.x version.

Run the installer and everything will be loaded onto your machine.

Install Ruby

Next, you’ll want to install Ruby. There are multiple ways to do this, as explained at www.ruby-lang.org. One option is to use a package manager like Homebrew. Once it’s been installed (at /usr/local/bin/brew ) you can install Ruby from a command prompt (e.g. Terminal) via:

The initial «%» is the Unix shell prompt; you don’t have to type it.

Install Ruby/Tk

Next, you’ll need to download and install Ruby’s Tk module, which is packaged as a Ruby gem. To do so, from the command prompt, run:

To verify that everything worked, start up /usr/local/opt/ruby/bin/irb and type:

The first line should load Ruby/Tk; typically if there was a problem with finding Tcl/Tk it would show up here. The second line will return the version of Tk that you’re running, which should be something like «8.6.9».

Verified install using ActiveTcl 8.6.9.8609.2 and Ruby 2.7.1 via Homebrew on macOS 10.15.6.

Install Tk for Perl (Tkx) on macOS

For modern Tk programming using Perl, the «Tkx» module is highly recommended, and we’ll be using that here. It links against an existing but separate Tk library. So, to get the latest version of Tk for Perl, we’re going to have to do first download the latest 8.6.x Tcl/Tk version from ActiveState.

This tutorial used to rely on the ActivePerl distribution from ActiveState, which bundled a full Tcl/Tk installation, as well as the Tkx module. Unfortunately, as of this writing, there is not a macOS version of ActivePerl available.

Install ActiveTcl

The «ActiveTcl» distribution from ActiveState contains the latest Tk, as well as the latest version of Tcl (which Perl’s Tk bindings use internally to talk to Tk). In your web browser, go to www.activestate.com, and follow along the links to download the Community Edition of ActiveTcl. Note that you will need to create an account with ActiveState (no cost) to download it. Again, make sure you’re downloading an 8.6.x version.

Run the installer and everything will be loaded onto your machine.

Install Perl

Next, you’ll want to install Perl. There are multiple ways to do this, as explained at www.perl.org. One option is to use a package manager like Homebrew. Once it’s been installed (at /usr/local/bin/brew ) you can install Ruby from a command prompt (e.g. Terminal) via:

The initial «%» is the Unix shell prompt; you don’t have to type it.

Install Tkx

Next, you’ll need to download and install Perl’s Tkx module. We can grab it from CPAN. Unfortunately, at present it will not install correctly due to errors in its tests. We can bypass the tests and install it anyway. To do so, from the command prompt, run:

To check that this worked, run this from the Unix command line:

This will return the version of Tcl/Tk that it found. It should be something like «8.6.9».

Verified install using ActiveTcl 8.6.9.8609.2 and Perl 5.32.0 via Homebrew on macOS 10.15.6.

Installing Tk on Windows

Install Tk for Python (Tkinter) on Windows

Tkinter (and, since Python 3.1, ttk, the interface to the newer themed widgets) is included in the Python standard library. We highly recommend installing Python using the standard binary distributions from python.org. These will automatically install Tcl/Tk, which of course, is needed by Tkinter.

If you’re instead building Python from source code, the Visual Studio projects included in the «PCbuild» directory can automatically fetch and compile Tcl/Tk on your system.

Once you’ve installed or compiled Python, test it out to make sure Tkinter works. From the Python prompt, enter these two commands:

This should pop up a small window; the first line at the top of the window should say, «This is Tcl/Tk version 8.6»; make sure it is not 8.4 or 8.5!

You can also get the exact version of Tcl/Tk that is being used with:

It should return something like ‘8.6.9’.

Verified using Python 3.9.0rc1 binary installer from python.org (containing Tcl/Tk 8.6.9) on Windows 10 version 1809.

Install Tk for Tcl on Windows

On Windows, the easiest way to get Tcl/Tk onto your machine is to install the «ActiveTcl» distribution from ActiveState, which includes Tcl, Tk, plus a number of other extension libraries.

In your web browser, go to www.activestate.com, and follow along the links to download the Community Edition of ActiveTcl for Windows. Make sure you’re downloading an 8.6.x version. Note that you will need to create an account with ActiveState (no cost) to download it.

Run the installer, and follow along. You’ll end up with a fresh install of ActiveTcl, usually located in C:\ActiveTcl. From a command prompt, you should then be able to run a Tcl/Tk 8.6 shell via:

This should pop up a small window titled «wish», which will contain your application. A second, larger window titled «Console» is where you can type in Tcl/Tk commands. To verify the exact version of Tcl/Tk that you are running, type the following:

We want this to be returning something like ‘8.6.9’.

Type «exit» in the console window to exit. You may also want to add C:\ActiveTcl\bin to your PATH environment variable.

Verified install using ActiveTcl 8.6.9.8609-2 on Windows 10.

Install Tk for Ruby (Ruby/Tk) on Windows

Luckily, it is now only mildly painful, thanks to the good folks behind RubyInstaller for Windows.

The one-click installer used to include everything you needed to run Ruby/Tk, including the underlying Tcl/Tk libraries. Unfortunately, Tk was removed from the Ruby standard library (stdlib) in version 2.4, and made available as an external gem. RubyInstaller followed suit.

Install ActiveTcl

First, you’ll need to install Tcl/Tk.

On Windows, the easiest way to get Tcl/Tk onto your machine is to install the «ActiveTcl» distribution from ActiveState, which includes Tcl, Tk, plus a number of other extension libraries.

In your web browser, go to www.activestate.com, and follow along the links to download the Community Edition of ActiveTcl for Windows. Make sure you’re downloading an 8.6.x version. Note that you will need to create an account with ActiveState (no cost) to download it.

Run the installer, and follow along. You’ll end up with a fresh install of ActiveTcl in C:\ActiveTcl.

Install Ruby

Install Ruby/Tk

Next, you’ll need to download and install Ruby’s Tk module, which is packaged as a Ruby gem. To do so, open a command prompt and run:

The initial «%» is the Unix shell prompt; you don’t have to type it.

Tell Ruby Where to Find ActiveTcl

You’re not done yet. If you try to use Tk from Ruby, it will complain that it can’t find the underlying Tcl/Tk libraries. We’ll need to do a couple of things to fix that.

Second, the Tcl and Tk shared libraries will look for a bunch of initialization and other scripts which were installed as part of ActiveTcl. The best way to specify where to find them is to set the TCL_LIBRARY and TK_LIBRARY system environment variables.

This can be done in the Windows control panel (or search for «system environment variables» from the taskbar). In Windows 10, you’ll find a button labelled «Environment Variables. » in the «Advanced» tab of «System Properties». Add these system variables:

If you’re running a shell via command prompt you’ll need to restart it to see those new additions.

To verify the version of Tk, start up your newly installed copy of ‘irb’ (which would have been installed in C:\Ruby26\bin ), and type:

The first line should load Ruby/Tk. The second line will return the version of Tk that you’re running, which should be something like «8.6.9».

Verified install using ActiveTcl 8.6.9.8609-2, RubyInstaller Ruby+DevKit 2.6.6-1 on Windows 10 version 1809.

Install Tk for Perl (Tkx) on Windows

For modern Tk programming using Perl, the «Tkx» module is highly recommended, and we’ll be using that here. The easiest way to get set up is to use the «ActivePerl» distribution from www.activestate.com.

The «ActivePerl» distribution from ActiveState includes not only Perl, but also recent versions of Tk and Tcl (which Tkx uses internally to talk to Tk). In your web browser, go to www.activestate.com, and follow along the links to download the Community Edition of ActivePerl. Note that you will need to create an account with ActiveState (no cost) to download it.

Run the installer and everything will be loaded onto your machine. On our machine, perl.exe was installed at «C:\Perl64\bin»

To find out what version of Tk Perl and Tkx are using, run this from the Windows command prompt:

We want this to be returning something like «8.5.13».

Versions of ActivePerl prior to 5.10 (and some of the first 5.10 builds) included earlier versions of Tcl/Tk (8.4.x rather than 8.5.x). Use a more recent version, and and verify that you do have Tk 8.5 or newer.

Verified install using ActivePerl 5.28 on Windows 10 version 1809.

Installing Tk on Linux

Install Tk for Python (Tkinter) on Linux/X11

Tkinter (and, since Python 3.1, ttk, the interface to the newer themed widgets) is included in the Python standard library. It relies on Tcl/Tk being installed on your system. Depending on how you install Python, this may not happen automatically.

Remember, we’re using Python 3.x here, not 2.x.

You have several different options to get Python and Tkinter onto your machine. We’ll show you two, using your distro’s package manager, or compiling from source.

Option 1. Your Linux Distribution’s Package Manager

However, after you’re done installing Python, you should verify that Tkinter works correctly. Start a Python shell (e.g., /usr/bin/python3 ) and verify the install (see below).

If you’re getting an error saying «No module named tkinter» (without the single quotes around the module name), you’re probably using Python 2. This tutorial assumes Python 3.

Sometimes Linux distributions separate out their Tkinter support into a separate package. That saves installing the Tcl/Tk libraries for people who are using Python but not Tkinter. If so, you’ll need to find and install this package, which will also ensure that appropriate versions of the Tcl/Tk libraries are installed on your system.

For example, running Ubuntu 20.04LTS, Python 3.8.2 is already installed. However, to use Tkinter, you need to install a separate package, named python3-tk :

In this case, that package provides Tcl/Tk 8.6.x libraries to be used with Python.

Option 2. Install Tcl/Tk and Compile the Standard Python Distribution

If you’d like to use the standard source distribution from python.org, you can certainly do that.

But to do so, you’ll need to get the Tcl and Tk include files and libraries loaded on your machine first. Again, while there are several ways to do that, the easiest is to download and install ActiveTcl.

Next, download the current Python 3.x source distribution from python.org, and unpack it. On your configure line, you’ll need to tell it how to find the version of Tcl/Tk you installed. Then build as usual:

Make sure to verify your install (see below).

Didn’t work? There may have been an error compiling Python’s tkinter code. To check, from the main Python source directory, try touch Modules/_tkinter.c (note the underscore) and then make to recompile it. Watch closely for error messages.

Verifying your Install

At the Python command prompt, enter these two commands:

This should pop up a small window; the first line at the top of the window should say, «This is Tcl/Tk version 8.6»; make sure it is not 8.4!

If it gives you an error when you try to import tkinter (e.g., «If this fails your Python may not be configured for Tk»), something hasn’t been set up correctly. If you compiled Python yourself, see above to check for compile errors.

You can also get the exact version of Tcl/Tk that is being used with:

It should return something like ‘8.6.9’.

Verified install using ActiveTcl 8.6.9.8609.2 and Python 3.90rc1 source code from python.org on Ubuntu 20.04LTS.

Install Tk for Tcl on Linux/X11

Using a Package Manager

Using ActiveTcl

Another option is to install the «ActiveTcl» distribution from ActiveState, which includes Tcl, Tk, plus a number of other extension libraries.

In your web browser, go to www.activestate.com, and follow along the links to download the Community Edition of ActiveTcl for Linux. Make sure you’re downloading an 8.6.x version. Note that you will need to create an account with ActiveState (no cost) to download it.

This should pop up a window titled «wish8.6». To verify the exact version of Tcl/Tk that you are running, from the Wish prompt (in the terminal window) type the following:

We want this to be returning something like ‘8.6.9’. Type a control-D at the prompt in the terminal window to exit. You may also want to add /opt/ActiveTcl-8.6/bin to your Unix path.

Verified install using ActiveTcl 8.6.9.8609.2 on Ubuntu 20.04LTS.

Install Tk for Ruby (Ruby/Tk) on Linux/X11

To get Ruby/Tk working on Linux, we’ll rely on your distribution’s package manager. The package names and commands shown here are for Ubuntu, and may be different on your system.

Because Ruby/Tk is an add-on gem, it needs to be compiled on your system. That means we’re going to need to install the development versions of the Tcl/Tk libraries ( tk8.6-dev ) as well as Ruby ( ruby2.7-dev plus ruby2.7 for the command-line tools like irb and gem ]). This will also ensure we have the necessary compilers, dependent libraries like X11, and so on.

The initial «%» is the Unix shell prompt; you don’t have to type it.

Finally, you can install the Ruby/Tk binding with:

To verify that everything worked, start up irb and type:

The first line should load Ruby/Tk; typically if there was a problem with compiling it would show up here. The second line will return the version of Tk that you’re running, which should be something like «8.6.10».

Verified install using tk8.6-dev 8.6.10-1, ruby2.7.0 on Ubuntu 20.04LTS.

Install Tk for Perl (Tkx) on Linux/X11

For modern Tk programming using Perl, the «Tkx» module is highly recommended, and we’ll be using that here. The easiest way to get set up is to use the «ActivePerl» distribution from www.activestate.com.

The «ActivePerl» distribution from ActiveState includes not only Perl, but also recent versions of Tk and Tcl (which Tkx uses internally to talk to Tk). In your web browser, go to www.activestate.com, and follow along the links to download the Community Edition of ActivePerl. Note that you will need to create an account with ActiveState (no cost) to download it.

Run the installer and everything will be loaded onto your machine, in e.g. /opt/ActivePerl-5.28.

To find out what version of Tk Perl and Tkx are using, run this from the command line:

We want this to be returning something like «8.5.13».

Versions of ActivePerl prior to 5.10 (and some of the first 5.10 builds) included earlier versions of Tcl/Tk (8.4.x rather than 8.5.x). Use a more recent version, and and verify that you do have Tk 8.5 or newer.

Verified install using ActivePerl 5.28.1 on Ubuntu 20.04LTS.

The Obligatory First Program

To make sure that everything actually did work, let’s try to run a «Hello World» program in Tk. While for something this short, you could just type it in directly to the interpreter, instead use your favorite text editor to put it in a file.

Save this to a file named «hello.py». From a command prompt, type:

Couldn’t find hello.py? You might be looking in the wrong directory. Try providing the full path to hello.py.

Save this to a file named «hello.tcl». From the wish shell, type:

Couldn’t find hello.tcl? You might be looking in the wrong directory. You can either give the full path to hello.tcl, or use Tcl’s pwd and cd commands to see what directory you’re in, and change to a different one.

Save this to a file named «hello.rb». Start up [tk::inl «irb»], and from the command prompt, type:

Couldn’t find hello.rb? You might be looking in the wrong directory. You can either give the full path to hello.rb, or use Ruby’s Dir.pwd and Dir.chdir commands to see what directory you’re in, and change to a different one.

Note that there are two underscores between «ttk» and «button».

Save this to a file named «hello.pl». From a command prompt, type:

Couldn’t find hello.pl? You might be looking in the wrong directory. Try providing the full path to hello.pl.

Not working? Are you sure you’re using an 8.5 or newer version of Tcl/Tk? See the install chapter.

Our first program. Some work left to do before the IPO.

Spotted a mistake? Couldn’t find what you were looking for? Suggestions? Let me know!
If you’ve found this tutorial useful, please check out Modern Tkinter.

Install Tkinter

This tutorial will demonstrate how to install Tkinter on multiple platforms. Every platform has individual commands to install Tkinter in Python.

Install Tkinter on Windows

Tkinter offers multiple GUI libraries to develop GUI applications. The Tkinter is one of the popular libraries to build GUI system interfaces.

To install Tkinter, we have to install Python; if it is already installed, we can move on to install Tkinter. When we start the installation of Python, we can check td or tk and IDLE Tkinter during installation.

This way, this Tkinter will come along with Python packages, and we do not need to install it separately. However, if we lose installing Tkinter during the installation of Python, we can do it later using the pip command.

We can confirm the Python version using this command.

Pip ’s version is checked using this command.

Now we are ready to install Tkinter.

Please enable JavaScript

Now we can use the tkinter library. To confirm the tkinter library is installed, write the code in the shell.

If you are an Anaconda user, you can use the following command.

Install Tkinter on Linux

There are different variants of the Linux operating system. This section will learn how to install Tkinter in multiple variants.

Use this command if you’re using a Debian-based Linux operating system.

Use this command if you’re using one of these: RHEL, CentOS, Oracle Linux.

The Fedora-based Linux operating system uses this command.

Use this command to confirm the tkinter library is installed successfully.

Install Tkinter on Mac Operating System

There are two ways to install the tkinter library in MacOS. The Mac user will follow these steps.

Run the below command to check that python3 is installed.

Run the below command to check that pip3 is installed.

If your pip is outdated, please upgrade your pip using the below command.

We will use pip3 as the first method. Write the following command to install Tkinter.

The second method needs a setup.py file to install the Tkinter.

We have to download the latest version of Tkinter in python3 using this command.

Write the following command to extract the downloaded package.

Go to the extracted folder and run this command.

To ensure the tkinter library is installed, run this code in the Python terminal.

Install Tkinter in Pycharm

The installation process is very simple in Pycharm IDLE. Pycharm IDLE is more convenient for users.

There is an interface to install the tkinter library without running a command.

What is Tkinter used for and how to install it?

Tkinter is the de facto way in Python to create Graphical User interfaces (GUIs) and is included in all standard Python Distributions. In fact, it’s the only framework built into the Python standard library.

This Python framework provides an interface to the Tk toolkit and works as a thin object-oriented layer on top of Tk. The Tk toolkit is a cross-platform collection of ‘graphical control elements’, aka widgets, for building application interfaces.

If you want to take advantage of the latest version of Tkinter, you’ll need to install a version of Python that supports Tcl/Tk 8.5 or greater. This will provide you with the Ttk (Tile extension integrated into Tk), which is required in order to run the current Tk widget set.

Warning: If you’re working on a system that comes with Python pre-installed, you may need to upgrade it to at least Python 3.7, which includes everything you need to run Tk out of the box.

To verify the Tcl version on your computer, enter:

To open a Tcl/Tk shell and verify that it is working, enter a command similar to the following:

On a Linux system:

On a Windows system:

A popup window titled wish8.6 will appear.

To verify that Tkinter is properly installed, enter:

A popup window that states the Tcl/tk version should appear.

What is Tkinter Used For

This framework provides Python users with a simple way to create GUI elements using the widgets found in the Tk toolkit. Tk widgets can be used to construct buttons, menus, data fields, etc. in a Python application. Once created, these graphical elements can be associated with or interact with features, functionality, methods, data or even other widgets.

For example, a button widget can accept mouse clicks, and can also be programmed to perform some kind of action, such as exiting the application.

How to Use Tkinter

In the following example, Tkinter creates a Tk application frame and a button widget that exits the application when clicked.

How to Download Tkinter for Python 3

As previously stated, the best way to get the latest version of Tkinter is to install Python 3.7 or later. But Tkinter can also be downloaded and installed as part of any standard Python 3 installation.

How to Install Tkinter

If you are using a Python 3 version prior to Python 3.7, or a non-standard version of Python 3 that does not include Tkinter, do the following:

On a Linux System:

On a Windows or Mac System:

The simplest and easiest method to install Tkinter, is to either: