Creating Tabbed Widget With Python-Tkinter

Creating a multiple Selection using Tkinter

Last Updated :12 Jul, 2025

Prerequisites:Python Tkinter – ListBox Widget,Scrollable ListBox in Python-tkinterTkinter is a GUI library in python which is easy to read and understand. In Tkinter, multiple selections can be done using the List box widget. Generally, a Listbox displays different items in the form of a list. A list box widget provides one or more selections of items from a list. There are many options available in a Listbox widget that makes the user select multiple options. By assigning the select mode option as multiple, the user can able to select multiple options. If the select mode option is single then only one option can be selected by the user.The selectmode option of a listbox widget can be single, browse, multiple or extended.

single - Selects one line of text.
browse - It is a default option where the user can select one line of text.
multiple - Selects multiple lines of text without dragging from first line of option to last line.
extended - User can select and drag adjacent multiple lines of text.

Syntax :

list_box = Listbox(root, options, ....)

Example 1:Python program displaying limited items in the listbox.

Python3 1==

# Python program demonstrating# Multiple selection in Listbox widgetfromtkinterimport*window=Tk()window.geometry('100x150')# Choosing selectmode as multiple# for selecting multiple optionslist=Listbox(window,selectmode="multiple")# Widget expands horizontally and# vertically by assigning both to# fill optionlist.pack(expand=YES,fill="both")# Taking a list 'x' with the items# as languagesx=["C","C++","Java","Python","R","Go","Ruby","JavaScript","Swift"]foreach_iteminrange(len(x)):list.insert(END,x[each_item])# coloring alternative lines of listboxlist.itemconfig(each_item,bg="yellow"ifeach_item%2==0else"cyan")window.mainloop()

Output :

From the above multiple selection Listbox, the user can select multiple options. As there are limited items in the Listbox that fit into the prescribed size, the user can able to see all the items. But if there are more items to be displayed to the user then all the items are not visible at once in a Listbox. Hence, attaching a scrollbar to a Listbox is necessary if there are more items to be displayed in a list. This can be done by theyscrollcommand option(to scroll vertically) in Listbox.Example 2:Python program displaying List box with attached scroll bar.

Python3 1==

# Python program demonstrating Multiple selection# in Listbox widget with a scrollbarfromtkinterimport*window=Tk()window.title('Multiple selection')# for scrolling verticallyyscrollbar=Scrollbar(window)yscrollbar.pack(side=RIGHT,fill=Y)label=Label(window,text="Select the languages below :  ",font=("Times New Roman",10),padx=10,pady=10)label.pack()list=Listbox(window,selectmode="multiple",yscrollcommand=yscrollbar.set)# Widget expands horizontally and# vertically by assigning both to# fill optionlist.pack(padx=10,pady=10,expand=YES,fill="both")x=["C","C++","C#","Java","Python","R","Go","Ruby","JavaScript","Swift","SQL","Perl","XML"]foreach_iteminrange(len(x)):list.insert(END,x[each_item])list.itemconfig(each_item,bg="lime")# Attach listbox to vertical scrollbaryscrollbar.config(command=list.yview)window.mainloop()