Android TextView padding between lines

Question

I have a TextView which displays a long text. I want to give some space between lines like in CSS with line-height property. How can I do it?

score 485 · Accepted Answer · edited Mar 12 '14 at 17:49

485

You can use lineSpacingExtra and lineSpacingMultiplier in your XML file.

edited Mar 12 '14 at 17:49

Gopal Gopi

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answered Jul 28 '11 at 18:41

Romain Guy

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lineSpacingMultiplier works for me with float values like: android:lineSpacingMultiplier="0.8" – Juan Saravia Mar 25 '15 at 16:58
9

Can you explain how these work? Where are these measurements taken from? Can you give examples with relation to the font and also language? For example, line spacing is measured from the baseline, but East Asian language have no baseline. Where is the default line spacing defined? Is it in the font itself? – Christopher Perry Aug 01 '16 at 18:52
4

For example: android:lineSpacingExtra="2dp" – nibbana Apr 16 '20 at 13:59
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When I set text background, the background also covers the paddings. – user1034912 May 15 '21 at 03:55

score 104 · Answer 2 · edited Feb 07 '22 at 08:49

104

If you want padding between text, try LineSpacingExtra="10sp"

<TextView
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="180dp"
    android:lineSpacingExtra="10sp"/>

edited Feb 07 '22 at 08:49

Ola Ström

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answered Nov 14 '15 at 12:52

chanu panwar

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sp should be used instead of dp for this case – Osdward Feb 07 '22 at 00:47

score 87 · Answer 3 · answered Jul 28 '11 at 18:42

87

you can look into android:lineSpacingExtra and apply it to your XML

Additional Info is on this page

or the related method public void setLineSpacing (float add, float mult)

Additional Info here

answered Jul 28 '11 at 18:42

sealz

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score 61 · Answer 4 · answered Nov 23 '18 at 22:34

This supplemental answer shows the effect of changing the line spacing.

You can set the multiplier and/or extra spacing with

textView.setLineSpacing(float add, float mult)

Or you can get the values with

int lineHeight = textView.getLineHeight();
float add = tvSampleText.getLineSpacingExtra();          // API 16+
float mult = tvSampleText.getLineSpacingMultiplier();    // API 16+

where the formula is

lineHeight = fontMetricsLineHeight * mult + add

The default multiplier is 1 and the default extra spacing is 0.

score 20 · Answer 5 · edited Oct 04 '17 at 06:42

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Adding android:lineSpacingMultiplier="0.8" can make the line spacing to 80%.

edited Oct 04 '17 at 06:42

V-rund Puro-hit

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answered Oct 04 '17 at 06:08

Ajitsen

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score 18 · Answer 6 · answered Jul 28 '11 at 18:44

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You can use TextView.setLineSpacing(n,m) function.

answered Jul 28 '11 at 18:44

Vishnu Haridas

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Leonardo Sibela · Answer 7 · 2022-11-07T13:04:24.440

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You can either use lineSpacingExtra or lineSpacingMultiplier in your XML file.

lineSpacingExtra add extra spacing between lines of text of TextView

<TextView
    android:lineSpacingExtra="4dp" />

lineSpacingMultiplier works as scale factor for height of line space:

<TextView
    android:lineSpacingMultiplier="0.8" />

In other words, each line height will be height * multiplier + extra.

edited Nov 07 '22 at 13:04

answered Jun 03 '21 at 11:31

Leonardo Sibela

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score 3 · Answer 8 · answered Jun 29 '21 at 20:42

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You can use 2 attrs

1. lineSpacingExtra: it use for dp spacing

android:lineSpacingExtra="4dp"

2. lineSpacingMultiplie: it use for relative scale

android:lineSpacingMultiplier="0.8"

answered Jun 29 '21 at 20:42

Rasoul Miri

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Ganesh Hegde · Answer 9 · 2021-11-10T17:49:39.833

As an extended answer to above solutions

Remember you can add <item name="android:lineHeight">16sp</item> for directly setting the line heights but as per the docs above line works like this -

Explicit height between lines of text. If set, this will override the values set for lineSpacingExtra and lineSpacingMultiplier.
        <attr name="lineHeight" format="dimension" />

So be sure to use either lineSpacingExtra & lineSpacingMultiplier or lineHeight and not both.

score 0 · Answer 10 · edited Nov 17 '21 at 06:06

0

As of 16/11/2021, I use this line to increase the line space height:

android:lineHeight="25dp"

For me the other answers weren't helpful because maybe they updated the attribute and quite a lot of stuff changed in this version.

edited Nov 17 '21 at 06:06

Antoine

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answered Nov 16 '21 at 16:00

mist

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score 0 · Answer 11 · answered Jun 13 '23 at 10:41

It's working for me

just add two lines to your Textview

 android:includeFontPadding="false"
 android:lineSpacingMultiplier="0.8"

<TextView
            android:id="@+id/searchByItemTv"
            android:layout_width="match_parent"
            android:layout_height="wrap_content"
            android:layout_gravity="center_vertical"
            android:fontFamily="@font/dm_sans"
            android:includeFontPadding="false"
            android:lineSpacingMultiplier="0.8"
            android:paddingVertical="3dp"
            android:paddingStart="4dp"
            android:paddingEnd="6dp"
            android:text="@string/date_of_birth"
            android:textColor="@color/text_black"
            android:textSize="16dp" />

note: don't use android:textAppearance=""

before :

after:

Android TextView padding between lines

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