If you force the GUI window to be a specific size, then changing the font of a text widget won't cause the text widget to grow*. It usually helps to set the width and height of the text widget to 1 (one) so that it won't even try to grow when you change the font.
- well, the widget will try to grow, but the size constraint on the window will prevent the widget from getting too big.
Here's a simple contrived example.
import tkinter as tk
import tkinter.font as tkFont
class Example(object):
def __init__(self):
root = tk.Tk()
self.font = tkFont.Font(family="helvetica", size=18)
text = tk.Text(root, width=1, height=1, font=self.font)
button = tk.Button(root, text="Bigger", command=self.bigger)
button.pack(side="top")
text.pack(side="top", fill="both", expand=True)
text.insert("end", "Hello, world!")
# force the widow to a specific size after it's created
# so that it won't change size when we change the font
root.geometry("800x400")
def start(self):
tk.mainloop()
def bigger(self):
size = int(self.font.cget("size"))
size += 2
self.font.configure(size=size)
app = Example()
app.start()
The same technique can work on a smaller scale by putting the size constraint on a frame rather than the root window. If you put the text widget inside a frame, turn geometry propagation off, and then give the frame a fixed size, the widget will not grow. This is one of the few times when turning geometry propagation off can be useful.
Here's a modification of the above example, using this technique:
import tkinter as tk
import tkinter.font as tkFont
class Example(object):
def __init__(self):
root = tk.Tk()
self.font = tkFont.Font(family="helvetica", size=18)
button = tk.Button(root, text="Bigger", command=self.bigger)
# create a frame for the text widget, and let it control the
# size by turning geometry propagation off
text_frame = tk.Frame(root, width=800, height=400)
text_frame.pack_propagate(False)
text = tk.Text(text_frame, width=1, height=1, font=self.font)
text.pack(side="top", fill="both", expand=True)
button.pack(side="top")
text_frame.pack(side="top", fill="both", expand=True)
text.insert("end", "Hello, world!")
def start(self):
tk.mainloop()
def bigger(self):
size = int(self.font.cget("size"))
size += 2
self.font.configure(size=size)
app = Example()
app.start()