set spaces between letters in textview

Question

is there a way to set a custom space (in pixels) between letters to an editText? I found only how to set spaces between the lines, but bot between letters on the same row

take a look here http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1063268/is-it-possible-to-alter-the-letter-spacing-kerning-of-a-font-with-cocoa-touch — novalagung, Nov 25 '13 at 08:25
this is not an IOS, objective c question, I need to achieve this on android, as you can see in the question's tags. — Buda Gavril, Nov 25 '13 at 08:39

score 12 · Answer 1 · answered Apr 16 '18 at 05:18

12

Using android:letterSpacing i was able to add spacing between characters in a textview

  <android.support.v7.widget.AppCompatTextView
   android:id="@+id/textViewValue"
   android:layout_width="wrap_content"
   android:layout_height="wrap_content"
   android:letterSpacing="0.35"
   android:maxLines="1" />

Related methods:

setLetterSpacing(float)

answered Apr 16 '18 at 05:18

Rissmon Suresh

13,173
5
29
38

This is only available in API level +21 – Maher Abuthraa Jun 10 '18 at 15:46

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 04 '14 at 10:06

I had to do this myself today so here are some updates about this problem :

From API 21 you can use XML attribute android:letterSpacing="2" or from code myEditText.setLetterSpacing(2);

Before API 21, use a TextWatcher with the following code

private static final String LETTER_SPACING = " ";

private EditText myEditText;

private String myPreviousText;

...
// Get the views
myEditText = (EditText) v.findViewById(R.id.edt_code);

myEditText.addTextChangedListener(this);
...

@Override
public void beforeTextChanged(CharSequence s, int start, int count, int after) {
    // Nothing here
}

@Override
public void onTextChanged(CharSequence s, int start, int before, int count) {
    // Nothing here
}

@Override
public void afterTextChanged(Editable s) {
    String text = s.toString();

    // Only update the EditText when the user modify it -> Otherwise it will be triggered when adding spaces
    if (!text.equals(myPreviousText)) {            
        // Remove spaces
        text = text.replace(" ", "");

        // Add space between each character
        StringBuilder newText = new StringBuilder();
        for (int i = 0; i < text.length(); i++) {
            if (i == text.length() - 1) {
                // Do not add a space after the last character -> Allow user to delete last character
                newText.append(Character.toUpperCase(text.charAt(text.length() - 1)));
            }
            else {
                newText.append(Character.toUpperCase(text.charAt(i)) + LETTER_SPACING);
            }
        }

        myPreviousText = newText.toString();

        // Update the text with spaces and place the cursor at the end
        myEditText.setText(newText);
        myEditText.setSelection(newText.length());
    }
}

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Jun 25 '12 at 14:04

0

You could implament a custom TextWatcher, and add X spaces every time the user enteres 1.

answered Jun 25 '12 at 14:04

robisaks

193
1
9

pardon my candor, but this solution is horrible, works but is horrible. – ademar111190 Jul 02 '12 at 15:10
I agree, it was an off-the-top-of-my-head response, how would you accomplish this? – robisaks Dec 10 '12 at 01:01

score 0 · Answer 4 · edited Jun 20 '20 at 09:12

0

i have used this, and works for most API levels if not all of them.

KerningViews

Provides a set of views which allows to adjust the spacing between the characters of that view, AKA, Kerning effect.

https://github.com/aritraroy/KerningViews

edited Jun 20 '20 at 09:12

Community

1
1

answered Oct 10 '19 at 17:31

t90r

11

set spaces between letters in textview

4 Answers4

Linked