RadioButton in Tkinter | Python (original) (raw)

Last Updated : 11 Jul, 2025

The Radiobutton is a standard Tkinter widget used to implement one-of-many selections. Radiobuttons can contain text or images, and you can associate a Python function or method with each button. When the button is pressed, Tkinter automatically calls that function or method.
Syntax:

button = Radiobutton(master, text="Name on Button", variable = "shared variable", value = "values of each button", options = values, ...)
shared variable = A Tkinter variable shared among all Radio buttons
value = each radiobutton should have different value otherwise more than 1 radiobutton will get selected.

Code #1:
Radio buttons, but not in the form of buttons, in form of button box. In order to display button box, indicatoron/indicator option should be set to 0.

Python3 `

Importing Tkinter module

from tkinter import *

from tkinter.ttk import *

Creating master Tkinter window

master = Tk() master.geometry("175x175")

Tkinter string variable

able to store any string value

v = StringVar(master, "1")

Dictionary to create multiple buttons

values = {"RadioButton 1" : "1", "RadioButton 2" : "2", "RadioButton 3" : "3", "RadioButton 4" : "4", "RadioButton 5" : "5"}

Loop is used to create multiple Radiobuttons

rather than creating each button separately

for (text, value) in values.items(): Radiobutton(master, text = text, variable = v, value = value, indicator = 0, background = "light blue").pack(fill = X, ipady = 5)

Infinite loop can be terminated by

keyboard or mouse interrupt

or by any predefined function (destroy())

mainloop()

`

Output:

The background of these button boxes is light blue. Button boxes having a white backgrounds as well as sunken are selected ones.

Code #2: Changing button boxes into standard radio buttons. For this remove indicatoron option.

Python3 `

Importing Tkinter module

from tkinter import * from tkinter.ttk import *

Creating master Tkinter window

master = Tk() master.geometry("175x175")

Tkinter string variable

able to store any string value

v = StringVar(master, "1")

Dictionary to create multiple buttons

values = {"RadioButton 1" : "1", "RadioButton 2" : "2", "RadioButton 3" : "3", "RadioButton 4" : "4", "RadioButton 5" : "5"}

Loop is used to create multiple Radiobuttons

rather than creating each button separately

for (text, value) in values.items(): Radiobutton(master, text = text, variable = v, value = value).pack(side = TOP, ipady = 5)

Infinite loop can be terminated by

keyboard or mouse interrupt

or by any predefined function (destroy())

mainloop()

`

Output:

These Radiobuttons are created using tkinter.ttk that is why background option is not available but we can use style class to do styling.

Code #3: Adding Style to Radio Button using style class.

Python3 `

Importing Tkinter module

from tkinter import * from tkinter.ttk import *

Creating master Tkinter window

master = Tk() master.geometry('175x175')

Tkinter string variable

able to store any string value

v = StringVar(master, "1")

Style class to add style to Radiobutton

it can be used to style any ttk widget

style = Style(master) style.configure("TRadiobutton", background = "light green", foreground = "red", font = ("arial", 10, "bold"))

Dictionary to create multiple buttons

values = {"RadioButton 1" : "1", "RadioButton 2" : "2", "RadioButton 3" : "3", "RadioButton 4" : "4", "RadioButton 5" : "5"}

Loop is used to create multiple Radiobuttons

rather than creating each button separately

for (text, value) in values.items(): Radiobutton(master, text = text, variable = v, value = value).pack(side = TOP, ipady = 5)

Infinite loop can be terminated by

keyboard or mouse interrupt

or by any predefined function (destroy())

mainloop()

`

Output:

You may observe that font style is changed as well as background and foreground colors are also changed. Here, TRadiobutton is used in style class, it automatically applies styling to all the available Radiobuttons.