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Placeholder

Updated on Sep 15, 2025

The Placeholder character is a character used to represent the absence of user input in a RadMaskedInput control. The default value is an underscore. The Placeholder character will be displayed in a RadMaskedInput control for any mask position that the user has not filled in yet.

Example 1: Using the default placeholder

XAML
	<telerik:RadMaskedTextInput Mask="####" />

Figure 1 : Default placeholder

WPF RadMaskedInput Default Placeholder

When the Value of a RadMaskedInput control contains underscore character, it will be removed when we use the default placeholder. This is because of the default placeholder of the control is underscore character "_". You can alter this behavior by changing the default Placeholder or setting the ValueMode property to IncludeLiteralsAndPlaceholders or IncludePlaceholders. Example 1 demonstrates how to change the default Placeholder of the control.

Example 1: Change the default placeholder

XAML
	<telerik:RadMaskedTextInput Mask="####" Placeholder="$" />

Figure 2: Custom placeholder

WPF RadMaskedInput Custom placeholder

You can set a watermark content to the RadMaskedInput controls by using the EmptyContent and EmptyContentTemplate properties. When the Value of a RadMaskedInput control is null or empty the EmptyContent will be displayed. For more information, read Watermark.

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