// Create a text area with some initial text JTextArea textarea = new JTextArea("Initial Text"); // Create a text area with some initial text and a default number of rows and columns. // This number of rows and columns controls the preferred width and height of the component; // each row and column is rougly the size of an M in the current font. int rows = 20; int cols = 30; textarea = new JTextArea("Initial Text", rows, cols);