Multiline for WPF TextBox

Here is a sample XAML that will allow TextBox to accept multiline text and it uses its own scrollbars:

<TextBox
Height="200"
Width="500"
TextWrapping="Wrap"
AcceptsReturn="True"
HorizontalScrollBarVisibility="Disabled"
VerticalScrollBarVisibility="Auto"/>

The only property corresponding in WPF to the

Winforms property: TextBox.Multiline = true

is the WPF property:

TextBox.AcceptsReturn = true 

or

<TextBox AcceptsReturn="True" ...... />

All other settings, such as VerticalAlignement, WordWrap etc., only control how the TextBox interacts in the UI but do not affect the Multiline behaviour.


Enable TextWrapping="Wrap" and AcceptsReturn="True" on your TextBox.

You might also wish to enable AcceptsTab and SpellCheck.IsEnabled too.


Also, if, like me, you add controls directly in XAML (not using the editor), you might get frustrated that it won't stretch to the available height, even after setting those two properties.

To make the TextBox stretch, set the Height="Auto".

UPDATE:

In retrospect, I think this must have been necessary thanks to a default style for TextBoxes specifying the height to some standard for the application somewhere in the App resources. It may be worthwhile checking this if this helped you.