Entire JTable has a single tool tip text. It can be useful to change the tool tip text for certain cells, and even to show the entire cell content inside the tool tip (this is one of the best solutions for tables with a long cell content - see also Multi-line Cells).
To do this, you must subclass JTable, and override getToolTipText(). Use getColumnAtPoint and getRowAtPoint to find the cell below mouse pointer. If you expect the content to be long, be sure to wrap it into a HTML document with constrained width (see also Use HTML Content).
public class HintTable extends JTable { public String getToolTipText(MouseEvent event){ Point p=event.getPoint(); int col=columnAtPoint(p); int rw=rowAtPoint(p); if (col>=0 && rw>=0) { Object o=getValueAt(rw,col); if (o!=null) return "<html><body style=\"width:250px\"><p>"+o.toString()+"</p></body></html>"; } return ""; } }