How to adjust text kerning in Android TextView?

Question

Is there a way to adjust the spacing between characters in an Android TextView? I believe this is typically called "kerning".

I'm aware of the android:textScaleX attribute, but that compresses the characters along with the spacing.

Solution 1

AFAIK, you cannot adjust kerning in TextView. You may be able to adjust kerning if you draw the text on the Canvas yourself using the 2D graphics APIs.

Solution 2

I built a custom class that extends TextView and adds a method "setSpacing". The workaround is similar to what @Noah said. The method adds a space between each letter of the String and with SpannedString changes the TextScaleX of the spaces, allowing positive and negative spacing.

Hope that helps someone ^^

/**
 * Text view that allows changing the letter spacing of the text.
 * 
 * @author Pedro Barros (pedrobarros.dev at gmail.com)
 * @since May 7, 2013
 */

import android.content.Context;
import android.text.Spannable;
import android.text.SpannableString;
import android.text.style.ScaleXSpan;
import android.util.AttributeSet;
import android.widget.TextView;

public class LetterSpacingTextView extends TextView {

    private float spacing = Spacing.NORMAL;
    private CharSequence originalText = "";


    public LetterSpacingTextView(Context context) {
        super(context);
    }

    public LetterSpacingTextView(Context context, AttributeSet attrs){
        super(context, attrs);
    }

    public LetterSpacingTextView(Context context, AttributeSet attrs, int defStyle){
        super(context, attrs, defStyle);
    }

    public float getSpacing() {
        return this.spacing;
    }

    public void setSpacing(float spacing) {
        this.spacing = spacing;
        applySpacing();
    }

    @Override
    public void setText(CharSequence text, BufferType type) {
        originalText = text;
        applySpacing();
    }

    @Override
    public CharSequence getText() {
        return originalText;
    }

    private void applySpacing() {
        if (this == null || this.originalText == null) return;
        StringBuilder builder = new StringBuilder();
        for(int i = 0; i < originalText.length(); i++) {
            builder.append(originalText.charAt(i));
            if(i+1 < originalText.length()) {
                builder.append("\u00A0");
            }
        }
        SpannableString finalText = new SpannableString(builder.toString());
        if(builder.toString().length() > 1) {
            for(int i = 1; i < builder.toString().length(); i+=2) {
                finalText.setSpan(new ScaleXSpan((spacing+1)/10), i, i+1, Spannable.SPAN_EXCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE);
            }
        }
        super.setText(finalText, BufferType.SPANNABLE);
    }

    public class Spacing {
        public final static float NORMAL = 0;
    }
}

Using it:

LetterSpacingTextView textView = new LetterSpacingTextView(context);
textView.setSpacing(10); //Or any float. To reset to normal, use 0 or LetterSpacingTextView.Spacing.NORMAL
textView.setText("My text");
//Add the textView in a layout, for instance:
((LinearLayout) findViewById(R.id.myLinearLayout)).addView(textView);

Solution 3

If anyone is looking for a simple way to apply the kerning to any string (technically, CharSequence) without using a TextView:

public static Spannable applyKerning(CharSequence src, float kerning)
{
    if (src == null) return null;
    final int srcLength = src.length();
    if (srcLength < 2) return src instanceof Spannable
                              ? (Spannable)src
                              : new SpannableString(src);

    final String nonBreakingSpace = "\u00A0";
    final SpannableStringBuilder builder = src instanceof SpannableStringBuilder
                                           ? (SpannableStringBuilder)src
                                           : new SpannableStringBuilder(src);
    for (int i = src.length() - 1; i >= 1; i--)
    {
        builder.insert(i, nonBreakingSpace);
        builder.setSpan(new ScaleXSpan(kerning), i, i + 1,
                        Spanned.SPAN_EXCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE);
    }

    return builder;
}

Solution 4

Since Android 21, you can use set the letterSpacing attribute.

<TextView
    android:width="..."
    android:height="..."
    android:letterSpacing="1.3"/>

Solution 5

Here's my solution, which adds uniform spacing (in pixels) between each character. This span assumes all text is in a single line. This basically implements what @commonsWare suggests.

SpannableStringBuilder builder = new SpannableStringBuilder("WIDE normal");
builder.setSpan(new TrackingSpan(20), 0, 4, Spanned.SPAN_EXCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE);
...

private static class TrackingSpan extends ReplacementSpan {
    private float mTrackingPx;

    public TrackingSpan(float tracking) {
        mTrackingPx = tracking;
    }

    @Override
    public int getSize(Paint paint, CharSequence text, 
        int start, int end, Paint.FontMetricsInt fm) {
        return (int) (paint.measureText(text, start, end) 
            + mTrackingPx * (end - start - 1));
    }

    @Override
    public void draw(Canvas canvas, CharSequence text, 
        int start, int end, float x, int top, int y, 
        int bottom, Paint paint) {
        float dx = x;
        for (int i = start; i < end; i++) {
            canvas.drawText(text, i, i + 1, dx, y, paint);
            dx += paint.measureText(text, i, i + 1) + mTrackingPx;
        }
    }
}

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