turtle

turtle: Fun with Graphics

The turtle module provides a simple and intuitive way to draw graphics. Imagine a small robot turtle that you can command to move around a canvas, leaving a trail behind it. You can change its direction, color, and whether it draws or not. It’s a fantastic way to learn programming concepts by creating visual art.

To get started, you just need to import the module:

import turtle

Note: You need to download the turtle.py file to the same location that you run your program…

Contents

• Turtle Motion
• Pen Control
• Turtle State
• Screen Control
• Color Control
• Other Commands

Turtle Motion

These commands control how the turtle moves around the screen.

forward(distance) or fd(distance)

Moves the turtle forward by the specified distance in its current direction.

# Move forward 100 steps
turtle.forward(100)

backward(distance) or back(distance) or bk(distance)

Moves the turtle backward by the specified distance, opposite to its current direction.

# Move back 50 steps
turtle.backward(50)

right(angle) or rt(angle)

Turns the turtle to its right by the specified angle in degrees.

# Turn right by 90 degrees
turtle.right(90)

left(angle) or lt(angle)

Turns the turtle to its left by the specified angle in degrees.

# Turn left by 45 degrees
turtle.left(45)

goto(x, y) or setpos(x, y) or setposition(x, y)

Moves the turtle to an absolute position on the screen. The center of the screen is (0, 0).

# Go directly to the top-right area
turtle.goto(100, 50)

setx(x)

Moves the turtle to the specified x coordinate, keeping its current y coordinate.

sety(y)

Moves the turtle to the specified y coordinate, keeping its current x coordinate.

setheading(angle) or seth(angle)

Sets the turtle’s orientation to an absolute angle.

• 0 degrees points to the East (right).
• 90 degrees points to the North (up).
• 180 degrees points to the West (left).
• 270 degrees points to the South (down).

# Make the turtle face upwards
turtle.setheading(90)

circle(radius, extent=360)

Draws a circle or an arc. radius determines the circle’s size. extent (in degrees) determines how much of the circle to draw.

# Draw a full circle with a radius of 50
turtle.circle(50)

# Draw a semicircle
turtle.circle(50, 180)

home()

Moves the turtle to the center of the screen (0, 0) and sets its heading to 0 degrees (East).

Pen Control

These commands control the turtle’s pen.

penup() or pu() or up()

Lifts the pen up. The turtle will move without drawing.

pendown() or pd() or down()

Puts the pen down. The turtle will draw as it moves.

pensize(width) or width(width)

Sets the thickness of the line drawn by the turtle. A width of 1 is the default. The maximum is 5.

# Make the line 3 pixels thick
turtle.pensize(3)

isdown()

Returns True if the pen is down (drawing), and False if it’s up.

Turtle State

These commands manage the turtle’s appearance and position.

hideturtle() or ht()

Makes the turtle invisible. This is useful when you want to see only the drawing.

showturtle() or st()

Makes the turtle visible again.

isvisible()

Returns True if the turtle is currently visible.

shape(name)

Changes the appearance of the turtle. Available shapes are "classic" (the default) and "turtle".

# Change the turtle's look
turtle.shape("turtle")

speed(speed)

Sets the turtle’s animation speed. speed can be:

• A number from 1 (slowest) to 10 (fast).
• 0 (fastest) means no animation; the drawing appears instantly.
• A string: 'slowest', 'slow', 'normal', 'fast', 'fastest'.

# Set a medium speed
turtle.speed(6)

# Make the drawing happen instantly
turtle.speed(0)

position() or pos()

Returns the turtle’s current (x, y) coordinates.

xcor()

Returns the turtle’s current x coordinate.

ycor()

Returns the turtle’s current y coordinate.

heading()

Returns the turtle’s current heading in degrees.

distance(x, y)

Returns the distance from the turtle to the point (x, y).

towards(x, y)

Returns the angle (in degrees) from the turtle’s current position to the point (x, y). Useful with setheading().

# Make the turtle face the top-left corner
angle_to_corner = turtle.towards(-150, 80)
turtle.setheading(angle_to_corner)

Screen Control

clear()

Erases all drawings from the screen but leaves the turtle at its current position and state.

reset()

This is a complete reset. It clears the screen, moves the turtle back to the center (0, 0), and resets all its settings (color, pensize, etc.) to their defaults.

Color Control

pencolor(*color)

Sets the color of the line the turtle draws. You can specify a color in several ways:

• As a color name string: "red", "blue", "green", etc.
• As an RGB tuple of floats from 0.0 to 1.0: (1.0, 0.5, 0.0).

# Set pen color by name
turtle.pencolor("blue")

# Set pen color with RGB values (for an orange color)
turtle.pencolor(1.0, 0.65, 0.0)

Other Commands

write(text)

Writes text on the screen at the turtle’s current position.

turtle.penup()
turtle.goto(0, 50)
turtle.write("Hello, Turtle!")