Question

How can I use subscripts in a Tkinter Label?

I found a lot of posts like this, but that does not help me…

Answer 1

For rich formatting, use a small text widget rather than a label. You then have the ability to add all kinds of formatting to the information. You can, for example, use the offset attribute on a text tag to create superscripts and subscripts.

Just set state to disabled after configuring the widget, and for all intents and purposes it will look like a label. The main difference is that you have to manually set the size since a text widget won’t expand to fit its contents like a label does.

For example:

import Tkinter as tk
class SampleApp(tk.Tk):
    def __init__(self):
        tk.Tk.__init__(self)
        l = tk.Text(self, width=5, height=2, borderwidth=0, 
                    background=self.cget("background"))
        l.tag_configure("subscript", offset=-4)
        l.insert("insert", "H", "", "2", "subscript", "O")
        l.configure(state="disabled")
        l.pack(side="top")

if __name__ == "__main__":
    app = SampleApp()
    app.mainloop()