How to pip or easy_install tkinter on Windows

Question

My Idle is throwing errors that and says tkinter can't be imported.

Is there a simple way to install tkinter via pip or easy_install?

There seem to be a lot of package names flying around for this...

This and other assorted variations with tkinter-pypy aren't working.

pip install python-tk

I'm on Windows with Python 2.7 and can't apt-get.

Thanks.

Answer 1

Well i can see two solutions here:

1) Follow the Docs-Tkinter install for Python (for Windows):

Tkinter (and, since Python 3.1, ttk) are included with all standard Python distributions. It is important that you use a version of Python supporting Tk 8.5 or greater, and ttk. We recommend installing the "ActivePython" distribution from ActiveState, which includes everything you'll need.

In your web browser, go to Activestate.com, and follow along the links to download the Community Edition of ActivePython for Windows. Make sure you're downloading a 3.1 or newer version, not a 2.x version.

Run the installer, and follow along. You'll end up with a fresh install of ActivePython, located in, e.g. C:\python32. From a Windows command prompt, or the Start Menu's "Run..." command, you should then be able to run a Python shell via:

% C:\python32\python

This should give you the Python command prompt. From the prompt, enter these two commands:

>>> import tkinter
>>> tkinter._test()

This should pop up a small window; the first line at the top of the window should say "This is Tcl/Tk version 8.5"; make sure it is not 8.4!

2) Uninstall 64-bit Python and install 32 bit Python.

Answer 2

If you are using virtualenv, it is fine to install tkinter using sudo apt-get install python-tk(python2), sudo apt-get install python3-tk(python3), and and it will work fine in the virtual environment

Answer 3

I had the similar problem with Win-8 and python-3.4 32 bit , I got it resolved by downloading same version from python.org .

Next step will be to hit the repair button and Install the Tk/tkinter Package or Just hit the repair. Now should get Python34/Lib/tkinter Module present. The import tkinter should work ..

Answer 4

In python Tkinter was default package ,repair at the time we can select the Tcl/Tk , in c directory the tkinter stored in C:\Python27\DLLs_tkinter.pyd on that place , reinstall otherwise directly put the (_tkinter.pyd)file into DLLsenter image description here

Answer 5

if your using python 3.4.1 just write this line from tkinter import * this will put everything in the module into the default namespace of your program. in fact instead of referring to say a button like tkinter.Button you just type Button

Answer 6

I'm posting as the top answer requotes the documentation which I didn't find useful.

tkinter comes packaged with python install on windows IFF you select it during the install window.

The solution is to repair the installation (via uninstall GUI is fine), and select to install tk this time. You may need to point at or redownload the binary in this process. Downloading directly from activestate did not work for me.

This is a common problem people have on windows as it's easy to not want to install TCL/TK if you don't know what it is, but Matplotlib etc require it.