Tips on using text boxes

The TextBox is a flexible control governed by the following properties: Text, MultiLine, WordWrap, and AutoSize.

  • Text contains the text that's displayed in the text box.

  • MultiLine controls whether the TextBox can display text as a single line or as multiple lines. Newline characters identify where one line ends and another begins. If MultiLine is False, the text is truncated instead of wrapped.

  • WordWrap allows the TextBox to wrap lines of text that are longer than the width of the TextBox into shorter lines that fit.

If you don't use WordWrap, the TextBox starts a new line of text when it encounters a newline character in the text. If WordWrap is turned off, you can have text lines that don't fit completely in the TextBox. The TextBox displays the portions of text that fit inside its width and truncates the portions of text that don't fit. WordWrap is not applicable unless MultiLine is True.

  • AutoSize controls whether the TextBox adjusts to display all of the text. When using AutoSize with a TextBox, the width of the TextBox shrinks or expands according to the amount of text in the TextBox and the font size used to display the text.

AutoSize works well in the following situations:

  • Displaying a caption of one or more lines.
  • Displaying the contents of a single-line TextBox.
  • Displaying the contents of a multiline TextBox that is read-only to the user.

Note

Avoid using AutoSize with an empty TextBox that also uses the MultiLine and WordWrap properties. When the user enters text into a TextBox with these properties, the TextBox automatically sizes to a long narrow box one character wide and as long as the line of text.

See also

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