How to make text fit in cells in a wxPython grid?

Question

Basically if I drag a cell I can size it to whatever size I want. Is there functionality in wxPython where cells expand automatically to fit the size of the text inside of them?

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 07 '14 at 14:28

One way to do it would be to catch any data entry into the cell event, get the size of the entered data, check if its greater than the column size -> if yes then set the text width as the column size.

Here's an example code I wrote:

import wx.grid
import wx


class Frame ( wx.Frame ):

    def __init__( self, parent ):
        wx.Frame.__init__ ( self, parent, id = wx.ID_ANY, title = u"Test", pos = wx.DefaultPosition, size = wx.Size( 500,300 ), style = wx.DEFAULT_FRAME_STYLE|wx.TAB_TRAVERSAL )

        sizer_main = wx.BoxSizer( wx.VERTICAL )
        self.panel = wx.Panel( self, wx.ID_ANY, wx.DefaultPosition, wx.DefaultSize, wx.TAB_TRAVERSAL )
        sizer_inner = wx.BoxSizer( wx.VERTICAL )
        self.grid = wx.grid.Grid( self.panel, wx.ID_ANY, wx.DefaultPosition, wx.DefaultSize, 0 )

        # Grid
        self.grid.CreateGrid( 5, 5 )
        self.grid.EnableEditing( True )
        self.grid.EnableGridLines( True )
        self.grid.SetGridLineColour( wx.SystemSettings.GetColour( wx.SYS_COLOUR_BACKGROUND ) )
        self.grid.EnableDragGridSize( False )
        self.grid.SetMargins( 0, 0 )

        # Columns
        self.grid.EnableDragColMove( False )
        self.grid.EnableDragColSize( True )
        self.grid.SetColLabelSize( 30 )
        self.grid.SetColLabelAlignment( wx.ALIGN_CENTRE, wx.ALIGN_CENTRE )

        # Rows
        self.grid.EnableDragRowSize( True )
        self.grid.SetRowLabelSize( 80 )
        self.grid.SetRowLabelAlignment( wx.ALIGN_CENTRE, wx.ALIGN_CENTRE )

        # Label Appearance

        # Cell Defaults
        self.grid.SetDefaultCellAlignment( wx.ALIGN_LEFT, wx.ALIGN_TOP )
        sizer_inner.Add( self.grid, 1, wx.ALL, 0 )


        self.panel.SetSizer( sizer_inner )
        self.panel.Layout()
        sizer_inner.Fit( self.panel )
        sizer_main.Add( self.panel, 1, wx.EXPAND |wx.ALL, 5 )


        self.SetSizer( sizer_main )
        self.Layout()
        self.Centre( wx.BOTH )
        self.Show()

        # Connect Events
        self.grid.Bind( wx.grid.EVT_GRID_CELL_CHANGE, self.on_edit )

        # Some essential stuff for resizing
        font = wx.Font(pointSize = 10, family = wx.DEFAULT, style = wx.NORMAL, weight = wx.NORMAL, faceName = 'Consolas')
        self.dc = wx.ScreenDC()
        self.dc.SetFont(font)

    def on_edit( self, event ):
        row = event.GetRow()
        col = event.GetCol()
        size = self.dc.GetTextExtent(self.grid.GetCellValue(row, col))
        if size[0] > self.grid.GetColSize(col): self.grid.SetColSize(col, size[0])
        self.panel.Layout()


if __name__ == "__main__":
    app = wx.App()
    Frame(None)
    app.MainLoop()

The self.panel.Layout() is probably not needed.

Really appreciate all the functionality you demonstrated here. — Alex F, Jun 26 '17 at 20:47
Getting nostalgic thinking about my WxPython days! If you have time to kill, check out wxFormBuilder, an amazing design tool for wxPython. — user2963623, Jul 19 '17 at 18:23

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 07 '14 at 21:27

The Grid class has AutoSizeColumn/AutoSizeRow and AutoSizeColumns/AutoSizeRows methods that do a fairly good job of generically resizing rows or cols to be large enough for the contents of the row or col. They can be fairly expensive operations for large grids however, so they should be used with care.

score 1 · Answer 3 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:20

You might be able to use wxPython's wordwrap module or a custom renderer or a combination of the two. This other Stack Answer actually uses both:

Auto wrap and newlines in wxPython grid

Looking at the source code in the wxPython demo leads me to believe that you can probably do this with just wordwrap as the examples in GridStdEdRend.py are just using strings that are enclosed with triple quotes. You might want to take a look at that as well.

How to make text fit in cells in a wxPython grid?

3 Answers3