Entering and displaying data with text controls

  • 8 minutes

In Power Apps, text controls are used for all kinds of purposes, such as displaying text, numbers, dates, and calculating currency. For example, you could calculate the value of two Text input controls and display the results in a Label control.

There are several text controls that you could incorporate into your app. Each of these controls has a slightly different purpose and use case. For example, maybe you're creating an employee survey app, and you want to get employee feedback. In this scenario, you would use the Text input control and modify the Mode property to be Multiline instead of single line. Most likely, every app that you work with will have text controls so familiarizing yourself with these controls will be helpful as you develop your app. The following list details the different text controls that are available.

Screenshot of the text controls menu.

  • Label - A label shows data that you specify as a literal string of text, which appears exactly the way you type it, or as a formula that evaluates to a string of text. Labels often appear outside of any other control (such as a banner that identifies a screen), as a label that identifies another control (such as a rating or audio control), or in a gallery to show a specific type of information about an item.

  • Text input - A box in which the user can type text, numbers, and other data. For example, a user can specify data by typing in a text input control. Depending on how you configure the app, that data might be added to a data source, used to calculate a temporary value, or incorporated in some other way.

  • HTML text - An HTML text control not only shows plain text and numbers but also converts HTML tags, such as non-breaking spaces.

  • Rich text editor - The rich text editor control provides the app user a WYSIWYG editing area for formatting text. This control should be used if you want to allow the user to provide numbered lists or bullet lists. A good example is an app used to collect content for an article or newsletter, where you allow the user to add formatted text that would be helpful for the person compiling the article.

  • Pen input - A control in which the user can draw, erase, and highlight areas of an image. The user can use this control like a whiteboard, drawing diagrams and writing words that can be converted to typed text.

Here's a closer look at the Label control and a few examples so you can get a better idea as to how it works.

First, add a label control to show text.

  1. In Power Apps Studio, add a Label control.

  2. Set Text property for the Label to "Hello, world" (including the double quotation marks).

Next, create a more dynamic solution by combining a button, gallery, and multiple label controls. In this scenario, you'll create a collection called CityPopulations that contains data about the population of various cities in Europe. Next, you'll show that data in a gallery that contains three labels, and you'll specify the type of data that each label will show.

  1. Add a button, and set its OnSelect property to this formula:

    ClearCollect(CityPopulations, {City:"London", Country:"United Kingdom", Population:8615000}, {City:"Berlin", Country:"Germany", Population:3562000}, {City:"Madrid", Country:"Spain", Population:3165000}, {City:"Rome", Country:"Italy", Population:2874000}, {City:"Paris", Country:"France", Population:2273000}, {City:"Hamburg", Country:"Germany", Population:1760000}, {City:"Barcelona", Country:"Spain", Population:1602000}, {City:"Munich", Country:"Germany", Population:1494000}, {City:"Milan", Country:"Italy", Population:1344000})

  2. Press and hold Alt Key, and select the Button control. (This will create your collection and store all the information.)

  3. Add a Blank vertical gallery and set its Items property to CityPopulations.

  4. With the gallery selected, in the right pane, change the layout from blank to Title, subtitle, and body.

  5. Select the top or first Label control. The Text property shows ThisItem.City. A label in a gallery can display any available text field (or field property displayable as text) in the record. In our collection, each record includes a City, Country, and a Population; you could display any of these in a label in this gallery.

  6. Select the middle or second Label, which shows as ThisItem.Country.

  7. Select the last or third Label, change the Text property to ThisItem.Population.

Screenshot of Gallery Image menu items for text property.

These were just two simple examples demonstrating some basic functionality of a label control. There are many other ways to utilize label controls in your app.