Text box

This page is about boxes where text is entered in computing. For the help page on creating a simple HTML form on Wikipedia, using wiki syntax, see Help:Inputbox. For infoboxes in Wikipedia, where text is displayed and not entered, see Template:Infobox and Wikipedia:Infobox.

A text entry box

A text box in a text processing program.

A text box, text field or text entry box is a graphical control element intended to enable the user to input text information to be used by the program. Human Interface Guidelines recommend a single-line text box when only one line of input is required, and a multi-line text box only if more than one line of input may be required. Non-editable text boxes can serve the purpose of simply displaying text.

A typical text box is a rectangle of any size, possibly with a border that separates the text box from the rest of the interface. Text boxes may contain zero, one, or two scrollbars. Text boxes usually display a text cursor (commonly a blinking vertical line), indicating the current region of text being edited. It is common for the mouse cursor to change its shape when it hovers over a text box.