How can I use transparent images in tkinter without png?

Question

I am making a tkinter project for school. In the project, I need to use transparent images. In my school, the tkinter only supports GIFs so I cannot use a PNG. Moreover, only the modules that come with python 3 when installing are supported. We cannot download more. Is there a way to solve my problem?

GIFs support transparency and tkinter can read GIFs, so what's the problem? — Aran-Fey, Mar 17 '18 at 11:12
The alternative to PNG would be SVG: [HERE IS LINK ](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/22583035/can-you-display-an-image-inside-of-a-python-program-without-using-pygame) — tareq, Mar 17 '18 at 11:13
GIF can only use binary level transparency (i.e. one color in the palette is defined as transparent). Most PNG images/icons found on the web nowadays use full alpha channel (i.e. 256 levels of transparency). When converting such images to GIF, the result is usually not very aesthetic. Maybe you could ask the system administrator from your school to install Python 3.6 which supports PNG in tkinter. It should only take him 5 minutes to install an up-to-date release of Python. — sciroccorics, Mar 17 '18 at 12:06

score 2 · Answer 1 · edited Mar 13 '22 at 18:06

2

tkinter can show the png transparence.

Example with a basic image.

import tkinter as tk

root = tk.Tk()

img = tk.PhotoImage(file='test.png')

can = tk.Canvas(root, width=300, height=300, bg='lightGrey')
can.grid()

can.create_rectangle(0, 0, 200, 200, fill='darkGreen')
can.create_rectangle(100, 100, 300, 300, fill='navy')
can.create_text(150, 150, text='TKINTER', font=('', 32), fill='orange')
can.create_image(150, 150, image=img)

root.mainloop()

You just need to save your image with the alpha parametre, with Gimp or a good image editor.

edited Mar 13 '22 at 18:06

Glorfindel

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answered Mar 18 '18 at 22:43

brodeur

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Read the question: "In my school, the tkinter only supports GIFs so I cannot use a PNG" – Anonymous Coder Mar 18 '18 at 22:54
Why tkinter will be different in his school ? Tkinter is the same everywhere with python. – brodeur Mar 18 '18 at 23:02
What ? Gif and png work perfectly with tkinter python 2.7, 3.4, 3.6, because tkinter in all the versions of python is unchanged. – brodeur Mar 19 '18 at 08:37

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 17 '18 at 11:17

You can do this with GIFsicle, using the following options:

gifsicle -U --disposal=previous --transparent="#ffffff" -O2 pic.gif > pic_trans.gif

where pic.gif and pic_trans.gif are the source and destination file names, and #ffffff is the hex code of the color you want to make transparent (here, pure white).

How can I use transparent images in tkinter without png?

2 Answers2