How to make a TextBox accept only alphabetic characters?

Question

How can I make a TextBox only accept alphabetic characters with spaces?

Answer 1

You can try by handling the KeyPress event for the textbox

void textBox1_KeyPress(object sender, KeyPressEventArgs e)
{
    e.Handled = !(char.IsLetter(e.KeyChar) || e.KeyChar == (char)Keys.Back);
}

Additionally say allow backspace in case you want to remove some text, this should work perfectly fine for you

EDIT

The above code won't work for paste in the field for which i believe you will have to use TextChanged event but then it would be a bit more complicated with you having to remove the incorrect char or highlight it and place the cursor for the user to make the correction Or maybe you could validate once the user has entered the complete text and tabs off the control.

Answer 2

You could use the following snippet:

private void textBox1_TextChanged(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    if (!System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex.IsMatch(textBox1.Text, "^[a-zA-Z ]"))
    {
        MessageBox.Show("This textbox accepts only alphabetical characters");
        textBox1.Text.Remove(textBox1.Text.Length - 1);
    }
}