Installation on Windows

These instructions are for installing Tktable yourself, with pip install pytktable. With pip install "pytktable[binary]", you don’t need them: see With prebuilt Tktable (recommended).

The python.org installers for Windows include tkinter, Tcl and Tk: Tcl 8.6 up to Python 3.13, and Tcl 9.0 from Python 3.14.

Install Tktable

Tktable comes with Magicsplat Tcl/Tk for Windows, a Tcl/Tk distribution by a member of the Tcl Core Team. Its Tktable works with python.org’s Python, as long as its Tcl major version matches your Python’s: Magicsplat 1.x has Tcl 8.6, and 2.x has Tcl 9.0.

Check which Tcl version your Python uses:

python -c "import tkinter; print(tkinter.TclVersion)"

Then install Magicsplat in one of the ways below, and point TKTABLE_LIBRARY at its Tktable.

With winget (Tcl 8.6)

winget comes with Windows 11. It only has Magicsplat 1.x, so it only works for Python 3.11 to 3.13 (Tcl 8.6):

winget install Magicsplat.TclTk

It installs for your user, with Tktable in %LOCALAPPDATA%\Apps\Tcl86\lib\Tktable2.12.

With Chocolatey (Tcl 8.6 or 9.0)

Chocolatey has both Magicsplat 1.x and 2.x. If it is not installed, you can install it with winget, from an administrator PowerShell:

winget install -e --id Chocolatey.Chocolatey

Or follow Chocolatey’s install instructions. winget and Chocolatey can be installed together; just don’t install the same app with both.

Then, from an administrator PowerShell, install the release that matches your Python. For Tcl 8.6, that is Python 3.11 to 3.13:

choco install magicsplat-tcl-tk --version 1.16.0

For Tcl 9.0, that is Python 3.14 and later:

choco install magicsplat-tcl-tk --version 2.0.6

These are the versions tested in CI. They install for all users, with Tktable in C:\Program Files\Tcl\lib\Tktable2.12.

With Magicsplat’s installer

Download the installer of the release that matches your Python from Magicsplat’s site, and run it. Tktable is in the lib folder of where you install it, e.g. lib\Tktable2.12.

Point TKTABLE_LIBRARY at Tktable

If you don’t know where Tktable was installed, find it:

Get-ChildItem "C:\Program Files", "$env:LOCALAPPDATA" -Recurse -Filter pkgIndex.tcl -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | Where-Object DirectoryName -match "Tktable" | Select-Object -ExpandProperty DirectoryName

Save TKTABLE_LIBRARY for your user, so new terminals see it. For example, after installing with winget:

[Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable("TKTABLE_LIBRARY", "$env:LOCALAPPDATA\Apps\Tcl86\lib\Tktable2.12", "User")

This doesn’t change the terminal you’re in. Either open a new one, or also set it there:

$env:TKTABLE_LIBRARY = "$env:LOCALAPPDATA\Apps\Tcl86\lib\Tktable2.12"

Check the installation

python -m tktable

Try the example without installing Tktable

With Docker Desktop on Windows 11 (or Windows 10 build 19044 or later), you can run the example in an Ubuntu container, which has Python, Tk and Tktable. Its window opens on your desktop through WSLg.

From the repository’s root in PowerShell, build the image:

docker build -f docker/Dockerfile.ubuntu -t tktable-test:ubuntu .

Run the example:

docker run --rm -e DISPLAY=:0 -v /run/desktop/mnt/host/wslg/.X11-unix:/tmp/.X11-unix tktable-test:ubuntu python -m examples.planets

If no window opens, run the same image from a WSL shell instead, where WSLg sets DISPLAY:

docker run --rm -e DISPLAY=$DISPLAY -v /tmp/.X11-unix:/tmp/.X11-unix tktable-test:ubuntu python -m examples.planets