A tooltip is a small box with a short explanation that appears when the mouse rests on a widget. It saves you from putting a sentence next to a button and it does not take up any room.

Every PyQt widget has a setToolTip() method. The text can be plain, or a little html if you want it bold or on more than one line.

Setting up Tooltips in PyQt5

Note: Remember, tooltips aren’t visible on mobile devices since they lack a mouse cursor.
The setToolTip method is essential for defining a tooltip in PyQt. Once a widget is created, this method can be employed to assign a tooltip to it.

pybutton.setToolTip('This is a tooltip for the QPushButton widget')

To view the tooltip, hover the mouse over the widget and wait momentarily.

pyqt tooltip example image

You can put html in a tooltip, so <b> and <br> work.

button.setToolTip('This is a <b>QPushButton</b> widget')

If you’re looking to tweak the tooltip’s font style, PyQt’s got you covered:

QToolTip.setFont(QFont('SansSerif', 10))

Practical Tooltip Example with PyQt5

The example below puts a tooltip on a button. Move the mouse over the button and the text appears.

import sys
from PyQt5 import QtCore, QtWidgets
from PyQt5.QtWidgets import QMainWindow, QWidget, QPushButton
from PyQt5.QtCore import QSize    

class MainWindow(QMainWindow):
    def __init__(self):
        QMainWindow.__init__(self)
        self.setMinimumSize(QSize(300, 100))    
        self.setWindowTitle("PyQt tooltip demo - pythonprogramminglanguage.com") 
        pybutton = QPushButton('Pyqt', self)
        pybutton.clicked.connect(self.clickMethod)
        pybutton.resize(100,32)
        pybutton.move(50, 20)        
        pybutton.setToolTip('This is a tooltip for the button.')  

    def clickMethod(self):
        print('PyQt Button Clicked')

if __name__ == "__main__":
    app = QtWidgets.QApplication(sys.argv)
    mainWin = MainWindow()
    mainWin.show()
    sys.exit( app.exec_() )

Setting one

  • button.setToolTip('Save the file') is the short version.
  • The text can be a few lines, use \n.
  • You can use a bit of html, so <b> and <br> work.
  • setToolTipDuration(3000) sets how long it stays, in milliseconds.
  • setToolTipsVisible(False) turns them off for a whole window.

Write the tooltip for someone who has never seen your app. "OK" is not a tooltip, "Save the file to disk" is. Keep it to one line, a long tooltip is a label you should have put in the window instead.

Tooltips only show up with a mouse. If your app is used on a touch screen, put the text somewhere visible instead.

Reading helps, writing fixes it. PyChallenge has exercises on this and you can try them right now.