Place

The place geometry manager offers the most precision in element placement out of the three geometry managers however it has a much smaller set of use cases as it can create a lot of headaches to get things into the proper shape. For static window applications (no resizing) it can be a good option. We would generally advise against using it unless you’re an advanced user that knows they need it for their purposes (creating a custom geometry manager for instance).

Position

To define the position of elements using the place geometry manager we have two options: absolute position aand relative position. We can also combine these for some utility. These measurements are always relative to the widget’s parent.

Absolute Position

To use absolute positioning we provide the x= and y= attributes to .place().

import tkinter

root = tkinter.Tk()

tkinter.Label(root, text="x=50, y=50").place(x=50, y=50)
tkinter.Label(root, text="x=50, y=100").place(x=50, y=100)
tkinter.Label(root, text="x=150, y=75").place(x=150, y=75)

root.mainloop()

Relative Position

To use relative positioning we provide the relx= and rely= attributes to .place() .

import tkinter

root = tkinter.Tk()

# Add a frame
frame = tkinter.Frame(root, height=200, width=200, bg="navy")
frame.place(x=50, y=50)

tkinter.Label(frame, text="relx=0, rely=0").place(relx=0, rely=0)
tkinter.Label(frame, text="relx=0.4, rely=0.6").place(relx=0.4, rely=0.6)
tkinter.Label(frame, text="relx=1, rely=1").place(relx=1, rely=1)

root.mainloop()   

Notice that in the above example we cannot see the last label. This is because by default the anchor attribute is set to NW. This means the element’s top left corner is touching the bottom right corner of our frame.

Centering

Centering elements with .place() is rather simple:

import tkinter

root = tkinter.Tk()

# Add a frame
frame = tkinter.Frame(root, height=200, width=200, bg="navy")
frame.place(x=50, y=50)

tkinter.Label(frame, text="I am centered.. Omm").place(relx=0.5, rely=0.5, anchor=tkinter.CENTER)

root.mainloop()

Sizing

Similar to Position, we have two ways of defining the size of an element, absolutely and relative to its parent.

Absolute Size

Size can be set absolutely using the height and width parameters.

import tkinter

root = tkinter.Tk()

# Add a frame
frame = tkinter.Frame(root, height=200, width=200, bg="navy")
frame.place(x=50, y=50)
label = tkinter.Label(frame, text="height=100\nwidth=100\n\nframe is\n200x200")
label.place(height=100, width=100, relx=0.5, rely=0.5, anchor=tkinter.CENTER)

root.mainloop()
                            

Relative Size

Size can be set relatively using the relheight and relwidth parameters

import tkinter

root = tkinter.Tk()

# Add a frame
frame = tkinter.Frame(root, height=200, width=200, bg="navy")
frame.place(x=50, y=50)
label = tkinter.Label(frame, text="relheight=0.4\nrelwidth=0.7\n\nframe is\n200x200")
label.place(relheight=0.4, relwidth=0.7, relx=0.5, rely=0.5, anchor=tkinter.CENTER)

root.mainloop()