How to change letter spacing in a Textview?

android textview typeface

179,405

Solution 1

Depending on how much spacing you need, this might help. That's the only thing remotely related to letter-spacing in the TextView.

Edit: please see @JerabekJakub's response below for an updated, better method to do this starting with api 21 (Lollipop)

Solution 2

Since API 21 there is an option set letter spacing. You can call method setLetterSpacing or set it in XML with attribute letterSpacing.

Solution 3

More space:

  android:letterSpacing="0.1"

Less space:

 android:letterSpacing="-0.07"

Solution 4

This answer is based on Pedro's answer but adjusted so it also works if text attribute is already set:

package nl.raakict.android.spc.widget;
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 letterSpacing = LetterSpacing.BIGGEST;
    private CharSequence originalText = "";


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

    public LetterSpacingTextView(Context context, AttributeSet attrs){
        super(context, attrs);
        originalText = super.getText();
        applyLetterSpacing();
        this.invalidate();
    }

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

    public float getLetterSpacing() {
        return letterSpacing;
    }

    public void setLetterSpacing(float letterSpacing) {
        this.letterSpacing = letterSpacing;
        applyLetterSpacing();
    }

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

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

    private void applyLetterSpacing() {
        if (this == null || this.originalText == null) return;
        StringBuilder builder = new StringBuilder();
        for(int i = 0; i < originalText.length(); i++) {
            String c = ""+ originalText.charAt(i);
            builder.append(c.toLowerCase());
            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((letterSpacing+1)/10), i, i+1, Spannable.SPAN_EXCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE);
            }
        }
        super.setText(finalText, BufferType.SPANNABLE);
    }

    public class LetterSpacing {
        public final static float NORMAL = 0;
        public final static float NORMALBIG = (float)0.025;
        public final static float BIG = (float)0.05;
        public final static float BIGGEST = (float)0.2;
    }
}

If you want to use it programatically:

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 5

after API >=21 there is inbuild method provided by TextView called setLetterSpacing

check this for more

View more solutions

179,405

OkyDokyman

Developer

Updated on October 10, 2020

Comments

OkyDokyman over 3 years

How can i change letter spacing in a textview? Will it help if I have HTML text in it (I cannot use webview in my code).

P.S. I'm using my own typeface in the textview with HTML text.
- Jacksonkr over 8 years
  
  In the layout editor you can do android:letterSpacing=".05" Where .05 would be roughly "50" in a program like photoshop
Eric Novins over 13 years

How would you translate that over to letter spacing?
Kaymatrix almost 12 years

Is there a way to increase/decrease the space between letters/characters? textScaleX - Literary scales the letters/characters.
bkurzius over 9 years

@Barts answer does what the question is asking
johnw182 over 9 years

is this added actually spaces between the characters? Boo... if someone copies this text it will include the extra spaces. No-Joy
Bart van Nierop over 9 years

Needs a null check in applyLetterSpacing, but other than that, life saver!
Jono over 9 years

doesnt work when u set the text afterwords and then apply spacing programatically
Bart Burg over 9 years

@jonney it should, I have it working like that. Could you send an example?
Jono over 9 years

Ok when I get to the office I will. Basically I added this view in xml and then did a find view by id to get the object and changed the spacing and text programmatically and it did not change it. If i dont set text the spacing works. If i do settext the spacing only applies a small amount? It's as if it can only apply the big size amount but nothing greater than that at all
JerabekJakub over 9 years

@Kumaresan Yes, there is - since API 21, see my answer below.
jguffey about 9 years

@EricNovins did you ever find the answer to your question?
Shivam Bhalla almost 9 years

Hey, this doesn't work with ellipsis at the end of the text. Any ideas on how to fix that ?
Elliott almost 9 years

Scaling the text in the X axis is not the proper way to handle kerning or tracking in Android. There is an api for lollipop that accomplishes this however previous to lollipop you will need a custom text view to accomplish this.
dopatraman over 8 years

This doesnt actually work when set in the XML. I get an error like this: "1.2dp" in attribute "letterSpacing" cannot be converted to float."
JerabekJakub over 8 years

@dopatraman You have to ommit units, type just value: android:letterSpacing="1.2" instead of android:letterSpacing="1.2dp"
lhunath over 8 years

What is the purpose of c.toLowerCase()?
Bart Burg over 8 years

@Ihunath to be completely honest, I don't remember. Try to remove it and see what happens
k2col about 8 years

how does this help? I'm not aware of an HTML tag for letter spacing that works in a TextView.
DearDhruv about 8 years

@BartBurg your code works great. but If TextView has spannable string already then this code removes it.
ninjaneer almost 8 years

Knowing that 31% of the devices don't support API 21, how would you do this in previous versions?
JerabekJakub almost 8 years

To be fair, according to Google there are more than 45% devices with API 21 and higher (June 2016). For lower API, you can check another answers here, for example Bart's below.
Shayan_Aryan almost 8 years

The no-break space - "\u00A0" - is really useful. Thanks
Cristan almost 8 years

Note that the value of letterSpacing isn't in dp/sp, it is in 'EM' units. Typical values for slight expansion will be around 0.05. Negative values tighten text.
Rahul Devanavar over 7 years

How can to same in <21 ?
Jimit Patel over 7 years

I don't know how this solution got so many upvotes (+33, -24) are people just blindly putting up their votes? letterSpacing vs textScaleX what a huge difference
Jimit Patel over 7 years

@JerabekJakub is there any alternative for using letterSpacing below API 21?
JerabekJakub over 7 years

@JimitPatel Hi, as I said before, you can check other answers, for example Bart's answer below.
Drew Szurko over 6 years

For some reason letterSpacing wasn't changing in the AS preview. I had to actually run the app on a physical device to see the change.
Someone Somewhere about 6 years

It's true - Android Studio design mode does NOT properly respect this parameter. Probably worthy of a bug write-up against the tool. OR don't report it and tell your manager you need a device just to test this. ;-)
Maulik Patel about 6 years

if (Build.VERSION.SDK_INT >= Build.VERSION_CODES.LOLLIPOP) { this.setLetterSpacing(getResources().getDimension(R.dimen.le‌tter_spacing)); }else{ this.setTextScaleX(getResources().getDimension(R.dimen.lette‌r_spacing)); }
Shivam about 5 years

what is the default letterSpacing?
Evin1_ almost 5 years

The default letterSpacing is 0.0 according to developer.android.com/reference/android/widget/…
Valter Ekholm over 4 years

I tried putting normal spaces between each letter, it worked.
reactor over 4 years

if I toggle between numberPassword as the initial setting in xml and then swap to inputField.setInputType( InputType.TYPE_CLASS_NUMBER | InputType.TYPE_NUMBER_VARIATION_PASSWORD);, the masking bullets initially take up way less space until changed via Java. I was wondering how letterspacing can be used to keep spacing consistent when changing between these two types
ToolmakerSteve over 4 years

@JimitPatel - At the time the question was asked, letterSpacing option did not exist.
Jimit Patel over 4 years

@ToolmakerSteve that does not make me to write an answer to popular question with latest findings. That will help other users to get an answer easily. That was only my intention
Sarthak Mittal over 4 years

maybe add @Evin1_'s comment in ur answer
Jimit Patel about 4 years

what is the maximum and minimum letterSpacing supported?